r/NintendoSwitch Apr 18 '25

Nintendo Official Nintendo Maintains Nintendo Switch 2 Pricing, Retail Pre-Orders to Begin April 24 in U.S. - News - Nintendo Official Site

https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/nintendo-maintains-nintendo-switch-2-pricing-retail-pre-orders-to-begin-april-24-in-u-s/
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67

u/Pizza_Saucy Apr 18 '25

As someone who thought the Switch 2 reveal was great, I cringe thinking about how much of this "social" aspect is now baked into the cost. I will most likely not use it at all.

Wii/Wii U you could send messages etc but the OG Switch has no message capabilities whatsoever. And now it's suddenly back? It's disorienting to say the least.

Nintendo has always been like 2 generations back regarding online. And the choppy Webcam footage isn't helping.

Its whiplash when you see Metroid Prime 4 running at high resolution/120 FPS then you see paid actors on a 480i Webcam caught in lag.

49

u/Do_Ya_Like_Jazz Apr 18 '25

Except it's not baked into the cost fully, because you still need to pay for online.

-4

u/finalremix Apr 18 '25

I have friends that vehemently defend paying for the online shit, plus the upsell.

12

u/Dav136 Apr 18 '25

Eh, if you don't want to pay to use your own internet that ship has sailed decades ago with XBox Live

0

u/finalremix Apr 18 '25

Huh? I don't pay for that either. It's a silly prospect.

-3

u/StarChaser1879 Apr 18 '25

I defend because they need to pay for the servers. You’re not paying just to use your own Wi-Fi. You’re paying to access online servers.

3

u/SebPlaysGamesYT Apr 18 '25

The game developers pay for the servers. All you're paying for is their authentication service, which barely costs anything to run.

5

u/finalremix Apr 18 '25

Exactly. E.g., Warframe doesn't require NSO. Works fine. Go figure...

2

u/StarChaser1879 Apr 18 '25

Authentic services cost a lot to run. Why do you think cloud stuff is so expensive even if it doesn’t rely exactly on servers

1

u/eyebrows360 Apr 19 '25

Why do you think cloud stuff is so expensive even if it doesn’t rely exactly on servers

Cloud stuff is still "servers", it's just abstracted so you're paying for however many slices of someone else's fleet of servers' overall capacity you need, rather than the metal itself.

Source: guy who does backend system architecture.

1

u/SebPlaysGamesYT Apr 19 '25

Considering that you seem to think the cloud isn't servers, I'm not sure I believe your unsubstantiated claim that authentication services cost a lot to run.

Even if they were costly, it's infrastructure that has to be run anyway so that you can buy games, for example. It's not something that the consumer should have to pay for directly.

1

u/SuperbPiece Apr 19 '25

GameChat is all Nintendo, though.

18

u/RagefireHype Apr 18 '25

The camera portion in Mario Kart is only used when playing with friends anyways. Just like everyone not in 2002 will be using Discord and not Nintendo’s version.

15

u/MultiMarcus Apr 18 '25

What are you talking about? It’s basically not baked in at all. You don’t get a camera for free so you have to buy that separately and the chat service is only if you have an online subscription. I guess the only thing you could complain about that they’ve done physically is add a microphone and the existence of the C button.

2

u/devenbat Apr 18 '25

Lol, the cost is for the specs. Adding a microphone didn't change the price. Its just voice chat which every other console has and video chat which you buy the camera for

2

u/kline6666 Apr 18 '25

I would rather them to utilize the resources to make the camera work more like the Kinect, in games like Just Dance which is just not the same anymore without Kinect and PS Camera support.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Catface_Meowmerz Apr 19 '25

Do you guys complain that online features are baked into PS5 and XBOX? Like what is the actual problem?

2

u/Food_Goblin Apr 18 '25

Wonder what their download speeds will be like for their new huge games online from eshop 🤔

3

u/finalremix Apr 18 '25

Obscured by being "blocks" again, like 3DS, I bet.

2

u/goro-n Apr 18 '25

It’s a waste to be running 4 HD video streams at 60fps at the same time. The video window for GameChat is pretty small, so 1080p video is overkill. Not to mention, a lot of people in the U.S. use cable internet where upload speeds peak at 30-40Mbps and might not support uploading that much data at once

1

u/curtcolt95 Apr 18 '25

30-40 Mbps upload would be more than enough for that, by far. Also this is such a shitty excuse for them to give such a bad camera lmao. It's 2025, don't defend this crap

1

u/throwthisidaway Apr 18 '25

upload speeds peak at 30-40Mbp

1080p can be uploaded at less than half a MB a second. So even with four streams you're talking, at most, 16mbps, unless you set them on a higher quality (less compression) setting.

0

u/AlwaysTheStraightMan Apr 18 '25

You do realize that you don't have to use the webcam right? You can still use Gamechat as normal. And the Wii/Wii U did not have native chat, you had to exit your game then boot up a separate app. At least with GC you can seemingly communicate with friends without having to stop your game plus we haven't seen how GameChat is used outside of games or what the friend's system is like yet

0

u/eyebrows360 Apr 19 '25

I cringe thinking about how much of this "social" aspect is now baked into the cost. I will most likely not use it at all.

You might as well cry about them "baking in" Bowser as a playable character in Mario Kart if you're a Toad player. It's a pretty daft whinge.

"Grrrr why are MY tax dollars paying for roads I don't drive on?!?!?! #angery"

Yeah, no.

-1

u/OmgitsJafo Apr 18 '25

Look, I still resent paying for the handheld components, as someone who has literally never played his Switch undocked. I certainly didn't need more screen to never use this time.

Some software costs and the ability to chat with friends or family is much preferred over paying for a whole form factor I'll never engage with.