Switch 2 Teaser Impressions
With Nintendo’s announcement and teaser of the Switch 2, a few thoughts have been percelating in my mind. I’ll keep this brief, inspired both by Brendon Bigley’s ingenius hot take “Switch 2 thoughts but I only have as long as Nintendo’s announcement” and the limited time I have while my daughter naps.
I stated the following on my post “Nintendo Switch Presentation 2017 Impressions”:
Without question, Switch is another unique and possibly industry changing device. Like Apple, Nintendo often skates to where the puck is headed, defining industry trends. And without question, the biggest dream of all is being able to take your home console on the go.
Boy, if that wasn’t an understatement. At 146.04 million units sold (so far), Nintendo Switch is the third best-selling video game console of all time (and only ~14M units away from dethroning PS2 from the top spot). Five years after the launch of the Switch, Valve released the Steam Deck and we’ve seen a plethora of other manufacturers following Nintendo’s lead.
But where does the puck go after the Switch and “home console handhelds”?
So far, the Switch 2 looks like a bigger, more comfortable Switch. The new Joy-Cons seem to suggest some new features such as doubling as a mouse. And we can only assume the Switch 2 will pack a bit more power, if not for the fact that chips have gotten much more powerful in eight years, but the form-factor alone should support better thermals, larger components, and a bigger battery to support said power. It’s an iterative upgrade, which would (sort of) be a first for Nintendo considering the fact that they’re touting strong backwards compatibility with the Switch.
With that, here are a few unfounded, potentially crackpot throughts on the Switch 2 and Nintendo at large:
- Switch 2 will not sell gangbusters. Early adopters are eager to get thier hands on this, and assuming it will pack much more modern power, it will probably do well in the years to come if more demanding games can launch alongside their PC/PS5/Xbox Series counterparts on the Switch 2. But just as the current Switch is “good enough” for many players, I assume the original Switch will continue to be “good enough” for most players until they can no longer find the titles they want to play on their 8+ year-old console.
- Nintendo will focus on micro-innovations moving forward. Maybe my imagination has run dry, but I think we’re at the end of the road for video game console innovation. Nearly as soon as console video games arrived, players began dreaming of taking them on the go. The original Switch made that a reality (per my quote above). If this is true, that puts Nintendo in a very interesting position. A company known for its video game console innovation may not have much more room for large innovations such as the NES, Game Boy, DS, Wii, and Switch. I do think we’ll see micro-innovations on their consoles moving forward (such as the suspected mouse-input on the Switch 2 Joy-Cons), but I don’t think we’ll see big swings from Nintendo or others in the industry going forward. If Nintendo is seen as prescient of the games industry, the fact that they’re only iterating eight years later may suggest that we’ve hit a plateau. Innovation will happen — motion input, touch input, XR, etc — but it likely won’t be considered the core-gaming experience consisting of… well… buttons.
- Nintendo will look outside of consoles for innovations. Maybe an iteration of the Switch was obvious. Perhaps the writing of the the aforementioned plateau was on the wall as soon as Super Nintendo World was announced in 2015. But the fact that Nintendo seems to be making a full-throated effort to reach outside of video games with theme parks, movies, a music app… an alarm clock… may show that there may be limited room to innovate in the hardware space. Video games will continue to be the hub of their flywheel, but expansion beyond innovative video game hardware and into thier franchises seems to make even more sense now.
- Switch 2 could be the Microsoft handheld. Probably the wildest idea that I’ve had for a while. Microsoft has been stressing Xbox everywhere, now even porting games to PlayStation. Depending on the power of Switch 2, it’d be silly for Microsoft not to execute the same strategy on Nintendo’s “home console handheld platform”. Just like that, Xbox titles would be on an extremely popular handheld device. A boon for both Microsoft and Nintendo (which could blow a hole in my first bullet point). Furthermore, if the Switch 2 does suggest a video game hardware plateau, what’s left for Microsoft to do in the space? Why take the loss on building their own hardware? Lean on PlayStation as a powerhouse home console and Nintendo Switch for the handheld-first market.
If this is as far as Nintendo’s console innovation goes — yes, I know how ludicrous that sounds — at long last, I’ll be able to play my “Nintendo”.