Was Nintendo right to opt out of the graphics arms race?

[Soundwave]

Chrkeller said:

Soundwave said:

I doubt even in a year you'll be able to get much for $450 that is better hardware than the Switch 2. At $600-$800? OK, but that's not any different from any other console hardware. It was easy to get better hardware than the PS5 from day 1, a year++ after launch, no problem.

That's always been the case with consoles. The Atari Jaguar and 3DO was better hardware than the Super NES, good for the 10 people who owned one. 

Nintendo didn't accidentally get this performance, they designed a piece of hardware that would let them run next gen games and still be able to be sold at a reasonable cost. That's a notable difference from the Iwata-era, as the Wii and DS product lines were essentially aimed at casual gamers first. 

Frankly every other Nintendo console (as in the home console lineage) past the Wii brand be it NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Switch 1, and now Switch 2 has all been pretty decent hardware for its time. Wii was just a product line aimed for casuals that had about a 6 year run before it fizzled out then Wii U just flopped outright. Wii-Wii U is old news today, Nintendo has returned to making reasonably powerful consoles that can run the modern 3rd party games of its time for the mass market (millions of gamers) to enjoy. 

I know.  It is called sacrificing power for price, because it is a mass appeal product and not premium. 😉

Console hardware, including S2, will always be more bang for the buck compared to PC.  Volume discounts on hardware, taking hits and making it up via subscriptions, etc.  

Doesn't mean hardware can't be powerful, PC always has a huge chunk of its power unoptimized because of the nature of the platform, consoles will always push themselves to their limit better for a fraction of the cost. 

Switch 2 is a return for Nintendo to making good hardware, the Wii-Wii U casual era is definitely dead. It's not even like everyone and their grandma has $450 laying around anyway, that's pricey for certain segments of the market, it's just "reasonable" in the sense that it's reasonable relative to niche hardware like the ROG Ally X (which will sell a tiny amount of hardware). $450-$500 for Joe Average consumer is still pricey for a lot of people, inflation is up but most people's salaries are not. I don't think I'd say any hardware over $350 in this economy is a "budget buy" exactly. $450-$500 is definitely edging into a price range that is more in the premium range than "budget range". 

If Nintendo wanted to make a budget system this is definitely not the system they would have chosen.