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JackHandy on 04 April 2025
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sc94597 said:
JackHandy said:

The Gameboy was a nerfed NES. The GBA was a nerfed SNES. The DS was a nerfed N64 and the 3DS, a nerfed Gamecube. Their handhelds have always been nerfed devices, hence the Switch being a poor-man's PS4. And, likewise, the prices of these handhelds have always reflected as much. I paid under a hundred dollars for a launch GBA. Launch. Not at the end of its lifecycle mind you... this was day one. And that is the sort of price-point we've come to expect from a Nintendo handheld, mostly due to it being so under powered and technologically behind what is currently on the market. But this time, you're talking about something that is only a hundred dollars less than the top of the line launch-PS3, a system that was so expensive, the parent company literally told us we'd get second jobs to afford it... and that machine was cutting edge. The Switch 2 is not. Not even close.

None of the handheld platforms were "nerfed [home consoles.]" They were platforms with their own advantages and disadvantages with the console analogues you mentioned. For example, the 3DS had a much more capable GPU (with a much more modern feature-set) and overall more memory than the GameCube. 

The prices didn't "always reflect as much" either. The 3DS cost more than a GameCube, and had a similar price-drop schedule to the GameCube. Even if you account for inflation, it still cost the same at launch ($250 in 2011 ~ $200 in 2001.) The Switch cost as much as (and often due to stock shortages, even more than) a base PS4. In fact I bought my refurbished Switch in September 2017 for more than I bought my brand new PS4 Pro in April 2018 ($377 vs $355), although the Switch did come with BOTW (a game I already beat on Wii U.)  

The Switch (and Switch 2) also isn't a handheld in the sense that the 3DS or GameBoy were anyway. Its power-profile when docked is a tier above handheld platforms (8-15W vs. 0.7-3W at the package level.) 

AND AGAIN YOU ARE NOT ADJUSTING FOR INFLATION. The PS3 did NOT cost only about $100 more than the Switch 2 in 2025 dollars. Your whole argument here is based on faulty (and outright false) premises. 

Adjusting for inflation and the price-point people place on items are two different things. The average Joe does not walk into a store, see an eighty dollar game that was sixty dollars the last time they saw a similar one and go, gee... that's a lot of money... but if I calculate for inflation and carry the one... it's about the same price! They see eighty that dollars and go, fuck that shit! And that's what's going on right now. People are not happy. Hell, during the official stream, there were tons of viewers spamming lower the price over and over again. lol

But hey, if you don't care, if you want to justify it, go right ahead. People that like things justify things. It happens. I don't justify anything. I just look at something and make a judgment, regardless of my bias, and for the first time in my life, I'm seeing Nintendo attempting to out-gouge the rest of the guys which is really, really odd. You don't think of Nintendo as being the gouge-company. You think of them as being the consumer-friendly company. A company that thinks about mass market first. But eighty dollar digital games? That's not mass market. That's just insane, imo.

Last edited by JackHandy - on 04 April 2025