This whole "controversy" is so boring because we've already gone through this with PS5 and the original Switch.
Video games are luxury items, if you can't afford said game/console save up or don't buy them.

I'm curious, do people meltdown on car/watch forums over the price of a Ferrari? Rolex?

TBD.

Trump's tariff chaos may not affect only the USA, which is the single-biggest console market, but can potentially have a rippling effect on the world as a whole.

Ignoring Trump, Switch 2 is set up to sell as much as Switch 1. The hardware price may be a bit steep depending on the country, but the Mario Kart World bundle softens this. Switch 2 is also backwards compatible with controllers, so that too lowers the barrier of entry. The release schedule for 2025 is more than solid, and given how consistent Nintendo has been on Switch 1 with their schedule, there's no good reason to expect large gaps between first party releases all of a sudden. Microsoft's withdrawal in combination with Sony's inability to benefit from it means that more third parties will have to include Switch 2 in the multiplat mix; not that I expect these games to move the needle for hardware sales much, but it's a net gain for the system as a whole nevertheless.

The biggest X-factor is the direction and execution of big Nintendo games, because those are the real drivers for hardware sales; there's the possibility that Nintendo turns some of them disappointing or lame, but there's no way to know right now what's coming in 2026 and beyond.

But since Trump is real and since there's no guarantee that he will be gone in 2029, it's more sensible to expect Switch 2 to sell less than Switch 1. I'd go with something like 120 million, because the thing about Trump is that it's always worse than expected and almost always even worse than could be imagined.

It's a controversy because so many grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s when video games weren't necessarily being considered luxury items. You had handheld consoles for less than $100, and new game consoles were routinely launching at $199/$299, and then drop dramatically after just a couple of years. I remember buying a brand new GameCube from Walmart for like $75 in 2003, and spending a summer mowing lawns for a Game Boy Color, and later on an Advance for just a few bucks each lawn. Nothing major to save up on or work a job.

Now, it takes a LOT of saving up to do to get into gaming, and even then, it may not be enough if prices keep going up as time goes on.

They were luxury items thats why so many went to rental stores instead of buying games.

We also had video games that came with our McDonald's happy meals lol. I guess VHS tapes were luxury items then too.

I got my car as a hand me down from my mother, but I tend to carpool to save gas.

Still wish wages rose to combat inflation, especially in Canada where Switch 2 hardware and software costs even more.

Mc has nothing to do with it.  Anyway yes games and even movies were seen as a luxury items, at the beginning you had to spend a lot for a movie on VHS,

Rental stores were the answer and was widely used,  It is the popularity of Rental stores that pushed companies to lower the prices to 25$ ish for movies.

Idk how then, but somehow every single broke person growing up had video games lol. And they would always say because it was cheap.

Either way, gaming is quickly a child friendly hobby to an adult hobby with how much everything in gaming costs these days. And nothing is pointing that trajectory to anywhere but up as time goes on. 

I have 2 sealed copies each of the burger king games on 360 thank you.

Ignoring that I don't think it was to set to sell as well but it reaching the 130's seemed quite likely but thanks to that nonsense it's definitely not as likely any more. Though my expectations are actually currently somewhat more optimistic even with that since 120m is towards the lower end of my expectations for it. Either way the predictions expecting it to sell worse than the Wii or even the 3DS are gonna be funny to look back on in a few years.