Comment on Nintendo Maintains Nintendo Switch 2 Pricing, Retail Pre-Orders to Begin April 24 in U.S.
shinratdr@lemmy.ca 5 days agoIt’s only “outrageously” priced compared to its predecessor, and only if you don’t think about it too much. Considering under the hood it’s basically a phone or tablet, it’s very fairly priced considering the specs.
The Switch 1 is basically a tablet from 2017 being sold for $300. It never received a price drop despite it using 8 year old technology, it actually received a price increase with the OLED model. An iPad 5th Gen from 2017 sells for $50 on eBay, for comparison purposes. Not like for like as that has a way higher res screen and less RAM, but it’s fairly close.
As it’s a new chip with an expected 10 year lifespan, it’s likely on 3nm process which means it has to fight for manufacturing time with TSMC because they’re the only ones who can fab that sort of chip.
All that, plus the expectation that they will be absorbing some tariff costs for now means it will likely never see a price drop, and honestly doesn’t seem that bad in terms of pricing. It’s the cheapest console on the market with the exception of the very underpowered and useless Series S, and it’s competitively priced in terms of the tech under the hood.
So if it will be the cheapest console of its generation, is already cheaper than its ancient competition, is cheaper than a mid range GPU by itself, and is cheaper or comparably priced with similarly specced devices, then how is it so overpriced?
I agree with most of what you said, I don’t think the price is as high as people make it out to be, but:
So if it will be the cheapest console of its generation
Cheapest version of the Steam Deck is still cheaper for very comparable hardware, and while generations don’t align I think the Deck is closer to the Switch 2 than to the switch 1, and a Deck 2 would be miles ahead of a switch 2.
While the Switch 2 has better hardware, that’s only a tiny piece of the value proposition. The Deck is leagues better in value. I guarantee it will be able to play new release games for another 10 years. You can’t say that for the Switch 2. It won’t be able to play all of the new releases, sure, but thousands more than the Switch 2.
And that’s not to mention the tens of thousands of games the Deck can play now that the Switch 2 will never be able to play.
The truth is that hype and FOMO are powerful drugs that push gamers to constantly shell out their hard earned money to chase the newest things.
And, to an extent, I get it. There is something to be said about playing games when they come out and experiencing that moment with other gamers. There’s a sort of fraternal feeling about it.
But if you can step back from that and be patient, you can play all the games you have time for and not play into their trap.
ysjet@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Honestly I just have to wonder if it’s not astroturfing, or the results of astroturfing.
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
ysjet@lemmy.world 5 days ago
The reason I think it’s astroturfing is because there’s a lot of people who are critical of Nintendo, while simultaneously giving Sony and Microsoft a free pass for doing the exact same thing, or even just making things up outright to bash Nintendo, like your claims that it’s ‘hardware that is long in the tooth at launch.’
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 5 days ago