Your point would stand if I was talking about a separate platform, but I'm simply talking about taking S2's chipset, sticking it in a plastic shell & running it at full clocks.

It'd be the exact same platform as S2 but running the games at higher res. They could probably sell the thing for £100 if they wanted.

For that price who wouldn't buy it?

Some folk don't care about handheld gaming and/or would rather pay a fraction of the price for a docked only version. In the current economic climate offering a super affordable option would be the shrewd thing to do.

Bit of false equivalence going on here, the PS5 doesn't have many of the components & power constraints that a S2 has to include/contend with.

You can compare any handheld on the market and make it look bad by comparing it to a similarly priced console or PC.

I was being a bit facetious when saying they hate gamers. I just think Nintendo has always had a stubborn streak where they refuse to give gamers what they want even when there is seemingly no downside for them. (see their glacial progress on the online side of things, or abandonment of certain fan-favourite franchises)

I feel that Sony & MS tend to listen more to fan feedback and give them what they want more.

I guess the proof would be in the pudding, but can you seriously see a souped up 'Switch 2 Home' costing a fraction of the base console not selling at least 20+ million units? What was that stat that was knocking around a while back about the number of Switch owners playing exclusively docked? Was it not around a third?

$450 will give a lot of people pause. $100 / $150 / $200 is much more in the 'why the hell not' territory.

I doubt that they would sell it for $100 - $200.

$299 - $349 would be much more realistic. Display + battery + docking station won't save them THAT much in production costs.

They would still have to add a controller to the home package, either the Joy-Con-2 controller + chargeable grip or a Switch-2- pro controller.

Souped Up? If they're offering it cheaper it wouldn't be more powerful. I think a slightly cheaper Switch 2 Home would be a somewhat successful option. Even If it would only be around 10% of total Switch 2 sales.

The cost saving would just be removing the screen, battery & speakers and not having a separate dock. If they really wanted to save money they could also pack it with a cheaper controller instead of joycon 2's but I don't think they would want to have Switch 2 owners without Joycons for the few games that will not work with a pro controller.

But manufacturing wise I can't imagine the removal of screen, battery, speakers and separate dock would save them more than around $100. They'd still be charging $350+ for it.

I think there's definitely demand for the home edition but I just think it gets in the way of their branding and the OG Switch is cheap enough for them not to have to worry about it. Switch 2 may change that as it's not so cheap.

They could offer a non-controller option as the Switch 1 pro controller is compatible with S2 I believe & also I could see a lot of people double dipping who already own a Switch 2 (or the inevitable Switch 2 Lite) due to the higher performance of a fully clocked 'Home'.

You're prob right that $100 is too low but I could see a controller-less version being financially plausible at $150 to $200 if they were to sell at cost.

Unfortunately we'll likely never find out as all of the reasons to do this also applied to the OG Switch & it never happened...

By 'souped-up' I'm just referring to the chipset running at full clocks as they don't need to worry about battery/thermals. The hardware would be identical.

The Nvidia shield was similar to an OG switch without the screen/battery etc. and launched at 2/3s of the Switch's price (199.99 vs 299.99), however we have to assume that that was sold with a decent profit margin as Nvidia doesn't receive the recurring revenue that Nintendo enjoys from game purchases.

If the Shield was sold at cost then how low could it have gone? 1/2, 1/3?

Also, does the dock have more going on that we think? Isn't Nintendo selling it on it's own for $110? Either there's more tech in there than we think or Nintendo really are going full Apple with accessory/component pricing. Maybe removing the dock from the equation would save more money that we're assuming?

Also, they'd also save on distribution as the box for this thing could be truly tiny (though admittedly not sure how significant a cost saver that would prove).

I can see more of an incentive for a Switch 2 home than for the first Switch as it would be a way to get a cheaper SKU on the market, I just don't expect they'd increase clock speeds, as either you'd have to optimize for an extra performance profile in games, or if you didn't and it just held to its resolution/fps targets more closely, then I don't think they'd go to all the trouble.

As someone who doesn't use his Switch in portable mode, a home only version would be great for me, and I do think it's more likely this time around, graphics just aren't Nintendo's priority and haven't been for nearly two decades.

Switch Lite 'broke the brand' and it didn't seem to bother anyone.

Lowering the price generally always increases sales.

If Switch was $150 you don't think it'd have already broken the 200m mark?

Every dollar reduction lowers the barrier of entry.