Let me get this out of the way first: I’m not a Nintendo girlie. A couple of decades ago, my parents gave me a choice between N64 or PlayStation for my birthday, and I chose the team with the badass bandicoot and didn’t regret it. It wouldn’t be until 2019 that I’d pick up a Switch and still, it wasn’t until the summer of last year, 2024, that I’d put serious miles on it. The slim form factor and enormous game catalog made it a perfect companion for NYC subway trips, picnic hangs with friends, and late-night gaming in bed with a machine that didn’t tire my arms the way the heavier Steam Deck does. It was the platform on which I enjoyed the hell out of a recent replay of Final Fantasy VII, and I was all in for the Switch 2 as I dreamed of a better screen, more processing power, and cool new modes like the long-rumored and now-confirmed mouse mode.
But y’all, while I had a good time watching the Switch 2’s big reveal yesterday, I’m finding myself a little reluctant to make room for a $450 purchase right now with the prospect of paying $80 for some games moving forward. When we’re talking about this kind of money, I think it’s healthy to be skeptical of what we’re being sold.
It should have an OLED screen—especially if you’re charging for last-gen upgrades
A solid LCD screen does exist. I’ve seen it on the ROG Ally X. And maybe once I see a Switch 2 in action, I’ll shut up about this. But for the OG Switch to have gotten an OLED upgrade just for its successor to regress in that area just rubs me the wrong way, especially as upgrades to last-gen games like Breath of the Wild are going to cost me extra.
Improvements to the two stunning Zelda titles and Metroid Dread from the OG Switch are top of mind for me personally. I held off on going too deep into those games because I wanted to see them running with better framerates and resolution on Switch 2. Sure, that’s a limitation I chose to impose, but with an LCD screen and an extra upgrade charge for Zelda, I’m wondering if I’m better off waiting for a possible OLED upgrade to the Switch 2 before I invest. And speaking of investing…
With some games priced at $80-$90, you have some nerve selling these Game-Key Cards
If you haven’t heard, some Switch 2 physical games won’t actually be physical, yet they’ll require you to insert a piece of plastic into your machine that tells a server somewhere else that you have permission to run the game. This is just gross and wasteful.
I am not opposed to digital-only games. Valve has proven that it can work so long as a company is willing to put the effort into maintaining a healthy digital storefront.
No, not every game on Switch 2 will necessarily cost the higher 80-dollar entry price, and not every game will use a Game-Key Card. But the very fact that this price and distribution method is in play makes me a little sick. When you’re establishing a standard of damn near 100 dollars a game for a $450 machine, this experience is now too much of an investment for access to be this ephemeral process of inserting a piece of plastic that’s destined for a landfill the second those servers are gone.
I don’t mind spending a lot of money for quality stuff, especially for hobbies I genuinely enjoy (and yes, contrary to what my coworkers think, I do like video games…mostly). But what am I getting for these higher-priced games, some of which may require me to hang onto silly plastic keys?
Cyberpunk 2077 and Borderlands 4 are cool—but is this just gonna look like DLSS slop?
The Switch 2 packs a 1080p screen that runs at 120Hz. That might drain the battery more than it should, but I’m really excited about the higher frame rate—almost enough to make me overlook the LCD tech, but not quite. It’s also going to have contemporary graphics powerhouses like Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fantasy VII Remake along with modern AAA games like Borderlands 4—and the excitement over that is quickly diminished when I start thinking about the fact that the console will support DLSS.
For the uninitiated, DLSS is some pretty neat technology that uses AI to lessen the burden on your machine to render games at higher resolutions. And I hate it.
Read More: The Switch 2’s Battery Life Is Worse Than The Original
I’ve spoken with some folks who don’t seem to mind it—in fact, they seem to love it. But to my eyes, DLSS not only seems to serve as an excuse for a game not to be well optimized, it also looks blurry as hell. Part of me wonders how much of this is “real” and how much of it is in my head—like folks who claim they can’t listen to MP3s or streaming audio because it sounds too compressed (hi, I’m one of those and yes, I have a library of FLAC files for my music). There’s some weird psychology at play with our relationship with perceived quality. But every time I turn off DLSS on a game on PC, I find I’m a little less queasy, can see things more clearly, and in general have a better experience. And if this machine is also going to boast being able to run ray tracing, ugh, I have a full desktop PC for that kinda thing and don’t need the Switch 2 to try and compete with that when it might not work out well for quality and battery life.
If experience on the Steam Deck is anything to go by, the industry seems to be running into a bit of a problem with overpromising performance on portable hardware. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is one of the bigger recent sinners here; sure, it “runs” on the hardware, but it ain’t great! It might sound really impressive to reveal that a graphically sophisticated game will run on new hardware, but how do we define “run”—especially when you’re charging $80 bucks on a $450 machine?
Still, at least I can fall back on a healthy, near-endless supply of original Switch titles to enjoy on upgraded hardware, right?
I worry for the future of backwards compatibility
Despite having an identical port for game cartridges as the original Switch, the Switch 2 won’t be universally backwards compatible. You might think, “Oh, that’s fine. The hits will surely play, right?” Right now that prospect is…well, it’s tricky enough to raise an eyebrow.
Read More: Over 120 Switch Games Have Compatibility Issues Or Won’t Start Up At All On Switch 2
Currently there are more than 120 original Switch games that will run into issues running on Switch 2. And these aren’t random no-name titles. Games like Doom Eternal and Fortnite will have issues, it seems. Nintendo says it’s tested a ton of games, reporting that many original Switch titles will run, but it’s a bit of a shame that we’re gonna have to double check for each game—it makes carrying over a healthy library of one’s own games or diving into some last-gen classics and hidden gems on fresh hardware not as seamless as it should be.
I’m getting flashbacks to the Xbox 360’s backwards compatibility, and I don’t like that.
The Switch 2 will almost certainly sell incredibly well. People will have a blast on new games like Donkey Kong Bananza. Mouse mode with Metroid Prime 4 might really be something special. But the price of games, graphically intensive games that seem like too much for the hardware to handle, and the lack of a damn OLED screen for this price category, it’s enough to make me hesitate before throwing money at the screen.
.