Or: Not Another Switch 2 Update Post! Yes, I’m Afraid So.
Indeed in this hardware-dominated gaming year January, April, and June each provided relevant, compelling reasons to talk about Nintendo’s newest headline magnet, and at the beginning of this month the Switch 2 officially passed its three-month anniversary on the market. Yes, we’ve already lived through an entire financial quarter with this thing, and more besides. All the games dated in the big April Nintendo Direct have been released, more have been announced and/or given dates, the calendar for the rest of the year is set, and we have a pretty good feel for the current strengths and weaknesses of the console.
I don’t really have much of a personal stake in extolling the pros or eviscerating the cons of the Switch 2 at the moment. As that mammoth June article covered, it’s a rather straightforward upgrade over the Switch 1, and almost all my friends who had the last console already own its successor. I am, however, morbidly curious about tracking the 2’s market presence against that famously back-against-the-wall version of Nintendo that pulled out all the stops way back in 2017, and maybe throwing in an update on some developments that weren’t exactly obvious on release weekend. Time to dive back in, then.
Who Wore It Better?
Switch Launch Year Face-Off
If there’s one thing the first Nintendo Switch was notorious for getting right, it was the pitch-perfect release schedule stretched across its now-legendary first year on the market. So naturally any close follower of the industry would be mighty excited to compare the first year of any would-be successor, as directly as possible. Naturally, he writes, as he squirms uncomfortably in his chair. So uh, yeah, let’s do that.
Vagrant Rant 