Nintendo’s Switch 2 is nearly here, and while the hype is intense, I can’t help but feel a little sad looking at what we’re losing along the way.
While I can lay claim to being a lifelong Nintendo video game fan – I certainly liked the Game & Watch series as a kid, and still do – the reality is that I’m sticking to my plan outlined some time back to wait on the Switch 2 until it hits the limit of Kidman’s Law Of Buying New Consoles At Launch.
I haven’t wavered and ordered a Switch 2 as yet, though a family member has, so I will at least be able to glance at one from time to time while I wait for it to hit a suitable level of unique, must-have titles for my collection.
But I mentioned being sad in the blurb – what’s that all about?
Well, it’s simply because there can be zero doubt that with the transition to the Switch 2, we’re formally entering the end phase of buying games. Period.
No, really, I mean it, though it really only sunk in for me when I read this week that anyone who accidentally gets shipped a Switch 2 early won’t be able to do all that much with it.
Nintendo has effectively “bricked” those systems until launch day via a mandatory “day one” patch, so they won’t (as per reports) even play your existing and otherwise theoretically compatible original Switch games, let alone your Switch 2 ones, even if you have a cart version of those games.
So… one of two things is happening here.
I guess it’s feasible that Nintendo still had massive levels of code optimisation and bugfixing to do behind the scenes, and on day one there will be updates measuring in the 100+GB range for Switch 2 owners to download. Good luck with that – but I don’t think this is the case, really. Nintendo would be risking far too much and far too many unhappy Switch 2 owners to leave its code finalisation to the very last minute like that.
No, instead, the only way to read this is that Nintendo is artificially controlling the hardware that you buy for its own ends, essentially to keep the positive hype wheel spinning in its direction by ensuring there are no early “leaks” of gameplay, outside those it heavily controls through hands-on events and the like. You’re buying the hardware, but Nintendo is telling you exactly what you’re allowed to do with it.
And this brings me back to the games.
I have a large collection of games, as do many people, mixed between digital only titles – mostly Steam but also a range of console based titles – and physical games.
While it makes my brain feel nice and warm and fuzzy to think that I “own” those games, for the digital ones it’s pretty clear that in fact I don’t.
In most cases, I’ve got some kind of licence that lasts exactly as long as a software provider wants it to last, and probably no longer. Title no longer available through Steam? Tough luck. Nintendo shutters an eShop or Microsoft closes a server needed for validation, even for a single player or local gameplay experience? Too bad.
The original Switch has easily been my favourite console of the “current’ generation (it’s getting on a bit, though the Pandemic did play havoc with that), and a decent part of that has been because I could choose between digital and physical versions of games in a lot of cases.
Digital has convenience on its side, but I’m 100% renting games, really, but that was fine, because if it was a game I wanted long term with certainty, I could buy a physical copy, or increasingly, import one from Japan.
That changes with the Switch 2.
Yes, I know, it does support its own game card infrastructure, but let’s be real here.
While there’s technical support for full games on Switch 2 game cards, that’s going to be a more expensive proposition to produce, which means less profit for programmers.
Game Key cards, while better than those terrible “code in box” titles, are going to be far more common, and they’re basically just a simple gatekeeper device to a digital title anyway – at which point we’re back to renting games, because we can’t control how and when they might be playable.
If Nintendo shutters authentication for Switch 2 games when, say, the Switch 4 launches in 2035, those game key cards are totally stuffed. Meanwhile, with maybe a little contact cleaning, my copy of Unirally for the SNES should still be powering along nicely.
Of course, this has been the story for PC gaming for a very long while now, and it’s been all but the norm for the PS5 and Xbox Series X generation too, which is presumably why my local EBGames has far more t-shirts, cups and plush toys than actual, you know, games in it these days.
It is how the market has shifted… but still, I’m going to miss buying my games.
Alex is still recovering from a bout of poor health, which is why there’s no reviews or videos this week, but his brain still ponders on tech news…
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