Everyone could have foreseen the issues with the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement, because you’ve all just watched the video and shrugged your shoulders.
Yes, for those of you who haven’t seen it – which is fair because at time of writing it was posted 21 minutes ago – Nintendo have finally announced the Switch 2.
I felt like this was old news when, back in May last year, I published this piece on why Nintendo’s timing was starting to feel butchered.
Since then, that piece has only felt more pertinent. Over the last few weeks’ leaks, the recent images (which have mostly been proven true), have emerged. It’s also hard to ignore that this announcement is free of any major players within Nintendo and not part of a major Direct. If Nintendo were going to make a hastily organised video to counter some less-than-ideal leaks then I suspect it would look something like the exact video they’ve released.
A bizarre timeline
Nintendo have been quietly acknowledging the existence of a successor to the Switch for close to a year now, but without ever disclosing any detail. That strategy worked for, at most, three months. Yet time dragged on, and the release schedule for the Switch began speaking volumes: it was obvious to everyone, other than seemingly Nintendo, that it was time for the successor to be revealed.
The video itself is light on detail, with it ostensibly showing that recent leaks were true about the visuals of the console while showing clips of a seemingly unannounced Mario Kart game running on it. That’s it. It’s why at this stage the discussion is somewhat more forced down a visuals and marketing discussion as opposed to any great debate over the technology behind it. It’s also with a wry smile I note their choice of game as any new title in that series faces some very difficult questions.
It remains to be seen whether the new Nintendo Direct, confusingly announced for as far away as April, will mitigate the impact that the time of vaguely acknowledging it has had. They face an uphill battle: much of the excitement that they will have hoped to take advantage of will have dissipated through the length of time people have known about the console, or through the barrage of leaks that have emerged online.
Will it even matter?
This is a problem entirely of their own making and it’s entirely an image problem. This will not stop the console from surely being a huge success. The Switch was Nintendo at its glorious best, finding a niche in the market that no one else saw and occupying it. I also fail to see how a line of consoles, which can double as home systems and portable devices, will ever fail to hit the mark.
I have fewer concerns about Nintendo hitting the spot with this console than I did with Naughty Dog making a great new IP, but this last year has been far more frustrating than it should have been.
If Nintendo can do anything to speed up the process of revealing more information about the console, then it should do so urgently.
Will it affect sales? Probably not. What it does affect is the excitement among the loyal fans who relish that burst of energy from the possibilities of the next big release. It’s been watered down very considerably and while it’ll prove a minor mistake in the long-term, it is just a bit disappointing.
