Home Tech The Nintendo Switch 2 reveal was exciting, but will it entice you to upgrade?

The Nintendo Switch 2 reveal was exciting, but will it entice you to upgrade?

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The Nintendo Switch 2 reveal was exciting, but will it entice you to upgrade?

Well, it happened: Nintendo announced the Switch 2 the day after last week’s newsletter came out. And it was a strange announcement.

The short trailer (what you can see here) tells you everything we know so far: everything about the machine, except its appearance, remains a mystery. Nintendo has scheduled a reveal event for April that will presumably be more comprehensive. This was likely Nintendo’s plan all along, and the trailer was released early following a flood of leaked information about the console. They provided no release date, no details, and no games.

This makes any deep analysis of the Switch 2 seem speculative. It’s notable that this is an iterative console, similar to the Switch in shape, but larger, more powerful, and with some new features. It’s not a total curveball like the motion-controlled Wii, or even the original Switch, whose hybrid home/on-the-go functionality was a world first in 2017. I’m hoping for some fun, yet to be made. recently announced trick, like the 3DS’ augmented reality camera that lets you see Nintendo characters posing on your desktop.

However, since 2017, other companies have released hybrid consoles. The Steam Deck has been a big deal for people with a dismal backlog of unplayed PC games, allowing them to play Elden Ring on the plane. (No one knows how many units it has sold, but 10 million is a fair estimate, which certainly pales in comparison to the Switch’s 150 million.) PlayStation Portal, a controller with a very attractive screen spliced ​​​​in the middle that allows you to play PS5 games in your hands, is a half step towards a portable PS5. Microsoft is also exploring an Xbox handheld, although this is still a few years away.

The question for Nintendo is whether people want to upgrade the console they already have, with its huge library of particularly family-friendly games. But perhaps Nintendo won’t have to risk its fortune by selling tens of millions of new consoles in the first year of sales. The company’s games and characters are only growing in popularity and influence: between Mario movies, Universal Studios theme parks, a new museum in Kyoto, and the continued success of the Switch, Nintendo is at the peak of its fortunes. and depends less on its core. business than at any time in its history.

The Steam Deck has been a big deal for people with a depressing backlog of unplayed PC games.

Like many Japanese companies, Nintendo operates conservatively. Instead of loading up on debt, as is the American tradition, which can turn the launch of each new product into a life-or-death gamble, it maintains huge cash reserves; He allegedly owned 3.071 billion yen (over £16 billion) in assets starting last September. This war chest has allowed Nintendo to weather occasional failures and take a medium- to long-term view on its games and properties rather than continually appeasing shareholders in the short term. That’s why the company has continually defied armchair analysts who have insisted that it is doomed to become a third-party publisher, putting its games on other companies’ consoles, since the days of GameCube in the early 2000s. .

Whatever happens to the Switch 2 in its early years, Nintendo will not be in existential danger. Maybe a relatively safe bet like this: it’s just like the one you already have, but better! – could free up Nintendo to pursue its signature innovation elsewhere. The company’s crazy toy-making side recently appeared in Alarmo, a motion-sensing alarm clock that wakes you up to Nintendo music. It’s been a while since Nintendo Labo, a series of charming cardboard contraptions that came to life with Switch controllers, but all the people who made those things are still working at the company and I doubt their creativity is being suppressed.

As always in this business, it will all come down to the actual games. Only one of them appears in the Switch 2 reveal trailer: brief images of a new Mario Kart that, interestingly, Nintendo has not yet officially confirmed. Come April, I’ll be hoping for something like Breath of the Wild, which launched with the original Switch and completely redone open-world video games. But if that were not possible, I would settle for a new Rhythm Heaven. A revival is long overdue.

what to play

Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders. Photography: Megagon Industries

In 2019 and 2020, I found peace in a downhill cycling game called Lonely Mountains Downhill, whose minimalist but demanding gameplay (go fast, don’t die) and nature soundscapes calmed me. Its sequel, Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, came out yesterday and instead of a bike, you’re now on skis and can race with others or try to go down the mountain as a team in multiplayer.

This is not an easy game but it feels so It’s nice when you have an idea of ​​the small adjustments to your trajectory that you need to make to fly downhill without hitting your face on a rock. Fans of the old Trials games should definitely check it out.

Available in: Xbox, PC
Estimated playing time:
5+ hours: It’s easy to learn, very difficult to master

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what to read

Elon Musk. Photography: Getty Images
  • It’s been a fun week in my rhythm. A large number of YouTubers and streamers have accused Elon Musk of pretending to be good at video games, after Musk played a live game on X and seemed to have little understanding of what he was doing. He has since admitted to augmenting (paying other people to play for him on his accounts) after his Path of Exile 2 character was seen working while Musk attended Trump’s inauguration.

  • In an interview with the New York Times, Inkle Studios co-founder Jon Ingold laments that video game writing it’s not good enough. He calls the beloved role-playing game Disco Elysium “overwritten and tedious,” an unpopular opinion that I share.

  • sony has canceled several unannounced live service games in development, including one based on God of War and another based on Horizon, according to several information. (Sony has confirmed two cancellations through a spokesperson.) Is the tide finally turning away from these expensive (and, let’s be honest, increasingly predictable) megagames?

  • When TikTok briefly went offline in the US over the weekend after a Supreme Court decision upheld the ban, another app became collateral damage: Marvel Broochwhich is also published by TikTok owner ByteDance. At the time of writing this article, the game remains prohibited in the US

What to click

Question block

Art by Takaya Imamura for the SNES racing game F-ZERO. Photography: Nintendo

Reader Adam asks a timely question:

If there are not many surprises coming in the Switch 2 technology, what surprises would you like to see in terms of games? Are there any long-forgotten Nintendo franchises you’d like to resurrect? I’d love to for the Everybody Votes channel make a return. Everything was weird and fun at Nintendo in the mid-2000s.

I mentioned Rhythm Heaven at the end, a collection of Wario Ware-style music minigames with a weird twist, but there are a few more good candidates for this. Star fox! F-Zero! (We recently did a great interview with one of the lead artists of the 1990s F-Zero series, who is working on his own sci-fi game.) I’d love to see something like the DS’s StreetPass functionality, where other people’s avatars would visit your console if you walked past them when you were out and about. Lonely Mountains has also made me want another Excitebike. I’m going to narrow this down and say Star Fox, because I think that’s the most likely. Readers, what would you like to see at the April reveal event?

If you have a question for the ask block, or anything else to say about the newsletter, hit reply or email us at pushbuttons@theguardian.com.

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