This is more of a developer/producer issue than a consumer one. Nintendo is much more of a developer friendly company now than it has ever been really. Of course they're not perfect, and this decision was a bad one akin to past decisions they've made. Switch 2 probably still is the easiest Nintendo platform for any developer to develop for in Nintendo's history, regardless. 

Consumer friendly?? Since when was Nintendo ever consumer friendly relative to today’s Nintendo? Switch was the most expensive gaming device until November 2020, and they have an extensive history of rereleasing old games for inflated prices. If anything, they’re more consumer friendly now than ever, selling an on-the-go home console well below the competition AND offering their entire NES through GCN catalogue at only $50/year.

Also…why are we talking about consumer friendly when discussing delayed dev kits being sent to an indie studio? I feel this should be more a topic on partner friendliness than consumer, no? In which case, as the comment above me pointed out, Nintendo has been a lot more generous to devs as of recent than ever. Nintendo just has a strict MO of quality assurance for the launch period of a new system.

The Gameboy, N64, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube, DS, Wii and Wii-U were all affordable at launch. The Wii had free online play, an a la carte system for their vintage games (no subscription needed), affordable accessories and controllers, and the Wii-U had the same. Games were affordable, as well.

That's all changed.

So really, the only four times someone could point to them as being less consumer-friendly is the NES, SNES, launch 3DS, and mid-Switch to Switch 2... and what do all of those have in common?

GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, GameCube, and (to a lesser extent) DS were all very affordable at launch, this is correct.

However, it is not true that N64, Wii, nor Wii U were any more affordable than Switch nor Switch 2. The N64, for instance, launched as the most expensive system on the market (for a system that wasn’t something super niche like the Atari Jaguar). N64 literally had a price cut from $250USD to $200USD pre-launch because it was just too much for consumers to stomach compared to the $200USD PS1. Wii ($250USD) was only $50 cheaper than XB360 despite running on significantly weaker hardware; Wii U launched at $350USD — only $50 less than PS4 — despite running on weaker hardware. And while online was free, it was also significantly weaker than the online available on Switch 2 (which has seen a significant improvement over Switch 1). Not to mention, those systems asked $5-20USD/game from retro consoles, whereas Switch 1/2 only ask $20-50USD/year for the entire catalogue tanging all the way through GCN. And on top of all this, you know those Deluxe Editions Nintendo released throughout Switch generation? Well… simply turn your eyes upon GameBoy and GameBoy Advance which did the exact same things but with NES/SNES games, as well as Wii with GCN games.

Also, why comment so confidently on matters you clearly aren’t informed on? Half the things you just said were just wrong.

Where are you getting your numbers from? lol. The N64 launched at $199.99. The Wii-U launched at $299.99. And a la carte is always more pro-consumer than subscriptions. Always.

alright so its clear you know I’m correct but simply don’t want to engage. (Wii U had a $300USD SKU, yes, but that was stripped of storage and the pack-in Nintendo Land. The $350 model eventually would become the $300USD SKU.) The evidence is overwhelming that the Nintendo of today is no less nor more consumer friendly than that of yesterday.

Next time, don’t talk so confidently when you know next to nothing. Not gonna engage any further.

It's this sort of Jr. High approach to communication that makes the internet unpleasant for all. We're both people. I choose to see the person behind the name firebush. I respect that person. I care about that person. Stupid, petty, pointless, frivolous debates about video games? Not so much. I like to talk about them. I like to discuss them. I do not like to argue about them. And I most certainly don't like it when people take their real-world issues online and use such arguments as way to rage against the world for all the wrong its caused them and exact some sort of faux-control. I'm not here for that. 

JackHandy, respectfully, you made a claim, I provided a (very detailed/thoughtful) response which ironed out some of claim, you disregard everything by simply responding with a ridiculing (i.e. “lol”) three sentence reply which pointed out a typo and a minor detail. And so, I responded back with similar energy but of frustration. Don’t act like you were engaging in a respectful manner.

That all said, however, I know just as well as anyone that we are all flawed humans, from the fall at the Garden of Eden. I’m sorry for letting my emotions take hold of me. Never good for anyone to be controlling by worldly values.

No hard feelings. I'm not perfect, either, and lord knows it's taken a long, long time for me to get to this place and a lot of mistakes. But the way I see it is that, as gamers, we're in a small, tiny little minority of people. And when you factor in the whole message-board thing... we're edging toward microscopic. We should all stick together, respect one another and consider each other somewhat family. We should all be celebrating the hobby we all so-clearly cherish. The fighting is awful, and it really upsets me, because I can see the potential lost.

Thank you very much for the grace. :) Glad to see we can reach a peaceful conclusion! I agree with everything you say here.