Nintendo’s Switch 2 reveal felt like a lightning bolt delivered straight from Zeus himself for everyone except, well, most people. In fact, since the console – which fans have spent years clamoring for – looks so much like its predecessor, some analysts predict it’ll have trouble appealing to a general audience.
“I can imagine ‘normies’ being a bit confused,” gaming industry consultant Serkan Toto tells GamesRadar+. “The device is bigger than the original Switch, but not comically large. The form factor, button layout, and overall design are very similar to Switch 1, so I can imagine issues arising when potential mainstream buyers look at the new device.”
Even I, as someone whose job it is to care about the Switch 2, find myself observing its long black screen, petite Joy-Con controllers, and matte joysticks and thinking, wow… that looks just like the Nintendo Switch…
The Wii U – essentially a Wii that used a primitive Switch as a GamePad – faced similar prejudice when it debuted in 2012 and sold poorly. Casual gamers didn’t understand what made the device a worthwhile replacement to the perfectly good Wii consoles they already owned to play golf in Koopa Park.
Others thought, as a younger GamesRadar+ put it in 2011, the console “might well be a pimp-daddy polygon-processing motherf*cker from the future right now, but if it gets superseded by new Microsoft and Sony consoles in two years, it’ll suddenly stop being exciting as a pure gaming machine.” You know?
Nintendo officially shut down the Wii U’s online service last April. Maybe Nintendo, now being older and wiser, has learned its lesson. Its reveal trailer, at least, seems to make a point of distinguishing the Switch 2’s otherwise indistinguishable features from the original Switch, showing off the console’s extra USB-C port and demonstrating what seem to be mouse sensors with a magician’s flourish.
And we can’t forget all those hungry Nintendo fans who have wanted this for so long. Sameness is titillating to some people. So Circana gaming industry analyst Mat Piscatella thinks the Switch 2 will be a “massive success,” and he tells us he predicts Nintendo will sell approximately 16 million Switch 2 consoles worldwide by the end of 2025.
Even so, “it looks to be a bigger, more powerful Switch,” Piscatella says. “Exactly what people wanted and expected. But also, it looks to be primarily a bigger, more powerful Switch, which may not be enough to attract an audience outside of buyers of the original Switch.” Well, you can never win everyone over.
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