Summary
- During the dedicated Switch 2 showcase, Nintendo revealed that the Welcome Tour tutorial tech demo would cost money.
- While it’s only around £5, the fact that it’s not a free pack-in to let you test out the new system firsthand is causing an uproar.
- Many are demanding that Nintendo make it free, refusing to buy it, and deriding it as a paid instruction manual.
I think we all had the same reaction yesterday when Nintendo finally unveiled the Switch 2’s mysterious “Welcome Tour”. It looked like an answer to Astro’s Playroom, a built-in tutorial that would walk you through all the new tech, letting you experiment with the new features firsthand. It’s a cute little way to get hands-on and see what sets the console apart from its predecessor. Nobody could get mad at that, right?
Then the bombshell dropped — you have to buy it.
It’s cheap, at least. As reported by VGC, it’ll set you back 990 Yen, roughly $6.12 or £4.65. But a tech demo meant to acclimatize you with the Switch 2 costing anything is still bizarre, and people aren’t taking the news well.
“Who Would Pay For A Tutorial?”
“This should be free,” u/Trabless posted on r/NintendoSwitch2, amassing over 47,000 upvotes. And with over 2,700 comments and counting, it’s clear that even six bucks is crossing the line for a ‘game’ like Welcome Tour, especially when the Switch 2 itself is so expensive.
“Insane that this doesn’t just get released as pre-downloaded software. Who’d pay for this??” u/speedpowerxx commented. “I audibly laughed when they said it wasn’t free,” u/Blayden_Ridge said. “First Nintendo game to sell zero copies,” u/redditabismal mused.
Related
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Nintendo has knocked it out of the park with the Switch 2 Direct. But maybe not in the way it thought it would.
It’s hardly surprising that the overwhelming sentiment is a bewildered “why?”, especially when you consider that the live chat during the Direct was already flooded with Ls and confusion amidst the announcement. Many argue that it should be a pack-in game, preinstalled when you buy the console so that you can toy around with the system while you download other games, like the new Mario Kart World. Or, at the very least, a free download.
But nobody summed it up better than u/CoastingUphill: “So they expect us to pay for… the instruction manual?”
- Released
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June 5, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo