The 5 worst mistakes of the Nintendo Switch 2 launch (and why it doesn’t matter) – Reader’s Feature

A reader breaks down the Switch 2 launch line-up and lists the mistakes he feels Nintendo has made, from the marketing to the prices.

I’m not sure if anyone seriously thought the Nintendo Switch 2 would be a failure but to the absolute shock of no one sensible it hasn’t been. It’s the fastest-selling console ever, according to what I’ve read, and I’m sure that it will go on to have a very long life and plenty of great games.

I have one and a copy of Mario Kart World, and I’ve enjoyed it a lot, but despite what I imagined at the start of the year – and I think a lot of people were like this – Nintendo’s roll out of the console hasn’t been as slick as I expected.

I feel they have made a number of strange mistakes and just generally were too secretive and unclear about things for no reason that can have helped them. Since the console is selling anyway maybe they’ll think they made the right decisions. I guess I should just assume they know better, because what do I know, but here’s what I think they got wrong.

1. High prices

I’m not going to come out and say Mario Kart World isn’t worth £75, but then I don’t really know because I only paid £35 for it, as part of the hardware bundle. And even if I had bought it separately, I would’ve bought it digitally, which is considerably cheaper. So why did Nintendo let the games being expensive become the story? Mario Kart is the only one that’s that much and yet people are still running around saying it’s £80. The launch report on the BBC news was all about how expensive it was, and I feel Nintendo just let all the bad press happen. If digital downloads are the majority now, why wasn’t that figure the one that was being promoted, and the physical one was just an optional extra?

2. No reviews

This is a more minor thing but I feel the hype of new reviews is all part of the fun of a new console launch, but we didn’t get anything on launch day, just more previews and then a slow trickle over the coming days, that were obviously rushed or just ignored the smaller games entirely. Again, I don’t feel that was a good look for Nintendo and because Mario Kart’s reviews weren’t completely ecstatic there’s always going to be the question of whether they were purposefully trying to delay them until the last minute, which is not something I previously would’ve thought Nintendo would do.

3. Free Roam

As a continuation of this, I don’t think anyone would disagree that the way Mario Kart World uses its open world is weird, especially when it comes to the mostly empty Free Roam. It doesn’t spoil the game, but it does remove the one thing that would’ve made the game a 10/10 all-timer and you really wouldn’t have thought Nintendo would miss a trick like that. Also, it’s kind of the fault of the marketing for hyping it up. If they’d barely mention the open world people wouldn’t have been expecting anything, so I do think the marketing for the Switch 2 as a whole has had problem.

4. Launch line-up

It’s only slowly come into focus just how bad the launch line-up is for the Switch 2. Not in terms of quality but the almost complete lack of exclusives. Just one proper one for Nintendo, only one kind-of full price one from third parties and everything else is just ports of sometimes multiple years old games. It feels rushed, for what must be the least rushed console ever, in terms of the time Nintendo had to plan for it and launching it in the middle of June – for still no reason that I can understand.

5. Future games

This is linked to the previous point, but the future is also looking strangely bleak at the moment. I’m sure it’s not overall but Nintendo has done very little to make it seem exciting. Hyrule Warriors 3 and Kirby Air Riders must be the two least wanted Nintendo sequels ever, then you’ve got that cheap looking basketball game, and then a Splatoon spin-off, and The Duskbloods from FromSoftware. And even that’s multiplayer, so it’s not as exciting as it first seemed. A new Zelda could be half a decade away at this point and we’ve got absolutely no idea about a new 3D Mario.

By reader Garrant

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