Okay, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first.....NO 3D MARIO?!?!?!!?!?!

Not only is 3D Mario not releasing launch day, which in itself is a HUGE mistake, as Nintendo systems always need to launch with either a mainline Zelda or Mario game, but it is nowhere in sight!!! I was sure the final game they showed off was going to be the new Mario game, then it turned out to be 3D DK, which is cool and all, but that's no Mario, and even that isn't coming out until nearly a month and a half after launch. Such a crazy decision.

So that is one HUUUUGE blunder by Nintendo.

Then the totally bizarre...no price announcement?? How do you go through the entire Direct, with the system launching in 2 months, and now announce it's price?!!? The only thing I can think of is with this stupid American trade war they are concerned about tariffs and not sure if they are gonna have to jack up the price a bit before launch. Still though, no price announcement is crazy.


The rest of the Direct was amazing. Everything else screams that Nintendo is looking to dominate. So right up until the end when DK replaced Mario and no price announcement this was an A+++ Direct. I can't get over no Mario on launch day and not even shown at all though, that's nuts. How do they not have a Mario game at launch over 7.5 years after the last Mario game came out. Truly crazy.

Also sucks that the video got all messed up for a while, that's pretty embarrassing for your next gen system big reveal, yikes.




Okay now to the first 58 minutes of the Direct which was amazing:

- Mario Kart World looks incredible!

- Nintendo finally adding game chat and implementing it in an awesome way! Game chat and camera and everything looks fantastic, I'm assuming streaming will be built into the system too since that camera setup looks perfect for streaming. Only downside is the camera is clearly sold separately, but still, great job on Nintendo to finally add chat and come out swinging with it!

- Game share with 4 players is a fantastic addition for local multiplayer!

- 1080p screen is great! and 4k and 120fps support...they really went all out! They made sure to make everyone happy with this!

- Built-in dock cooling is great, making sure the system runs superbly in docked mode.

- The Welcome Tour game/info thing looks like maybe a cool little game with mini-games, though I expected it to come with the system, being a paid digital game it doesn't look worthwhile at all. Seems pretty obvious that should have been built in.

- Sucks you can't use Switch SD cards but with the transfer data capability I hope I can just transfer games straight from the SD card in the Switch to the Switch 2, otherwise it's gonna be a real pain if it only transfers stuff directly on the Switch or having to redownload all Switch games for Switch 2. Also a bit concerned that they made it clear there isn't 100% backwards compatibility, but hopefully it's just means it's like 99% of games and only a handfull of games can't make it for some reason.

- June 5th launch! Two months away!

- Some upgraded Switch games is cool, hopefully for the people who want to upgrade the upgrade fee is cheap, like $10. Although also cool they added content for those so maybe it'll be more like $20.

- Prime 4 and Poke Z-A are cross gen!!! Definitely plan to get Prime 4 on Switch 2 instead of Switch. And damn you can play Prime 4 at 40k/60fps or 1080p/120fps that's incredible!!

- Elden Ring announcement wow!!!! Definitely plan on getting this game. Though I'm a bit confused about the "Tarnished Edition" part. Does that mean it has extra things...or does that mean it is downgraded? Assuming it's a good port this would definitely be the first AAA third party game I get on Switch 2 as it's one of the main games from the consoles the past 5 years that I've been interested in.

- Hogwarts Legacy! Nice, Nintendo gamers get a not-downgraded version of HP now that's great.

- Cyberpunk coming to Nintendo!! FF7 Remake!! Silksong (finally)!! Duskbloods exclusive game looks cool.

- Overall, AAA third party support looks light years ahead of Switch. Switch 2 looks like it's finally gonna be the first Nintendo system in a long long time to have 'regular' AAA third party support. Tons of games coming out and plenty even at launch. Huge!

- Gamecube on Expansion Pack on launch day!!!!! That's incredible. Only three games kinda sucks but with two of them being Wind Waker and Fzero GX ya can't complain. Fantastic!!!

- Looks like launch day is gonna be huge thanks to lots of 3rd party games coming out at launch, despite missing really the only thing they absolutely needed to have - 3D Mario.

- Kirby fans gonna be excited for the new Air Ride game. New Hyrule Warriors looks cool. DK looks like it could be cool (but the disappointment that this is replacing Mario for the launch window is just too large to ignore).

- Games in general look fantastic and look exactly like what'd you want from a next gen Switch, and with 4k and 120fps capability it's looking like a work horse hybrid system.



It was a A+ Switch 2 announcement but also with the biggest asterisk mark possible in that the MAIN game everyone expects for a Nintendo launch is just entirely missing despite the fact they've had 7.5 years to get it ready since the last game, plus the bizarre note that they didn't even announce the price which is worrying. If it comes in at over $400, and with no Mario...that's gonna be a big blunder by Nintendo. If it's $400 then at least there will be plenty to get even without Mario since MK World looks incredible, MP4 is cross gen, and there's tons of major third party support. Color me excited!

UKphysical copy for MK is £75 it looks like they are charging an extra $10 for physical compared to digital. So $70 games are $80 physical and $60 games like DK are $70 physical.

Must be the new cartridges cost a lot to make. They have to be fast to run well without being installed to the internal storage but this is rough if this is going to be the case going forward.