They do for the Switch hardware. But compared to PS5 games they are ten years behind on the technical front.

For sure, to some extent. It depends on the level of interactivity. BOTW was like 20/10... The amount of testing that would require to get things working, and then to make sure that the player couldn't break the world lol. But simply having larger worlds of existing assets isn't a bigger feat then having the same size world of more detailed assets or upgrading an engines rendering capabilities. But yes, I think Nintendo actually spend a lot of time in the R&D stage too which is taken for granted.

Do we know if this is just a MarioKart problem? Or are all games going to suffer an $80 price tag? I’m hopeful this might just be a TotK situation, where the average game will cost $70, but some exceptional releases recieve a $10 bump. If it is the case that $70 is the norm, then I’m not too worried: MKWorld being a pack-in will prevent consumers from being smacked with an $80 price tag. However…I do struggle to see why your average consumer would purchase a NSW2 over the more economically-affordable NSW1 if they never owned a NSW1. It’s a tricky situation, and seeing how this went down for TotK (not even matching BotW in legs), I do believe Nintendo really should consider reexamining this strategy.

They hit a grand slam with software this time around (Kirby Air Ride 2, MarioKart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, GCN on NSO, FromSoft exclusive, DeltaRune Chpt3/4 at launch, a flood of major third-party releases that NSW1 couldn’t handle all too well, etc.), but their choice in pricing is bold **in NA** is bold. $450 for the base console is a very reasonable price, and expecting any lower was entirely unrealistic. Software prices, however, are what make me turn an eye.

I think people are forgetting that Metroid Prime 4 & Pokemon Legends ZA are cross-gen titles when talking about there not being a whole lot of 1st party games this year. Those two titles are absolutely major releases for Switch 2.

June 5-Mario Kart World, Welcome Tour
July 17-Donkey Kong Bananza
July 24-Mario Party Jamboree TV
Aug 28-Kirby Star Crossed World

Summer-Drag X Drive
2025-Kirby Air Riders
2025-Metroid Prime 4
Late 2025-Pokemon Legends ZA
Winter-Hyrule Warriors (could be early 2026)

That’s definitely a strong lineup of 1st party titles for the first ~6 months. Plus there is always the possibility of more games being announced at the next Direct.

Well we're now looking at a PS4 level machine with some PS5 graphical capabilities and even more advanced upscaling capacity. Looking back at the best the PS4 had to offer, knowing that Nintendo can technical deliver above that, there is still much room to WOW

Not true. The time spent to polish and modeling graphics follow development time

Overall, all games will have sessions with rough graphics. This happens because the time spent to polish graphics is as big as the other parts of development allows it to be

Artists who make graphic modeling work as long the development team is designing, programming, optimizing and testing. Unless of course there it is very short with overly simplistic mechanics, I can remember very few games that applies like Detroit becoming human. If every other step in development is finished no studio will spent additional time working of better pixels

No improvement in graphics generally means the studio is either targeting lower specs or simply want to cut development costs, as a team of artists working for 3 years instead of 1 is still a workforce the need to get paid 

Welcome to the "It's on ps4 so it doesn't count as a ps5 game" club.

MK, DK and Kirby alone is a decent enough line-up for the first 6 months though.

Not sure how you are getting "Pro" vibes. It's very clearly a solid generational leap. Basically looks like it's PS4 Pro power given that the games are graphically a huge leap over Switch and it can run them in 4k or 120fps. It's the complete opposite of Pro console vibes. Saying it has Pro console vibes is the absolute last thing I would have expected anyone to say lol.

The power I think is beyond what anyone was expecting. Personally I was expecting games to look like they do but run in either 4k/30fps or 1080/60fps, so I'm very impressed what they packed in, even if that means the price is jacked up $50 above what I expected, the HW price makes sense for how much power they stuffed the system with. They clearly decided to sacrifice system affordability in order to make a system strong enough to get lots of AAA third party support and look good even against the consoles.

The generational leap in power and the new hardware features and the awesome MK World and the much greater 3rd party support are the amazing things about the system.

The very expensive pricing strategy and no 3D Mario in sight meaning weak launch period first party support outside Mario Kart are the bad things.

But yeah because of the pricing strategy the Switch is definitely gonna last longer than expected. $400 system and $60 games would have meant the Switch is dead on launch day, but $450 system and $80 games means the Switch at $200, $300, and hell maybe even the $350 OLED still has room left to sell. Nintendo's next-gen pricing is bad for Switch 2 but good for Switch.

We also had that with Switch 1, people acting like updated Wii U games weren’t notable releases when they clearly were.

They will use that extra power to make bigger worlds and not focus on seeing facial pores like PS4 did. I'm really excited because the Switch 2 will have almost three times as much ram. That will let them have more objects on screen at once.