Nintendo positioning Switch 2 as merely a much bigger and higher follow-up to Swap 1 is damaging to the corporate’s model identification.
That is based on former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida, talking on the Easy Allies podcast, who has shared his ideas on Swap 2 usually, and Nintendo’s current {hardware} reveal.
Yoshida’s level is that Nintendo has all the time accomplished completely different when in comparison with rivals, and designed its consoles round enjoyable ideas – movement controls, or hybrid handheld/TV gameplay – relatively than merely specializing in extra technical oomph.
With Swap 2, nonetheless, Yoshida says Nintendo has targeted greater than ever on making a simple improve to its best-selling present console, with the central premise of being each a handheld machine and a house console unchanged.
“I’ve to be well mannered, I needed to be well mannered,” Yoshida started, noting that he had taken half in a livestream reacting to the Swap 2 reveal, and had initially been cautious together with his phrases.
“One thing I did not say there,” he then continued, “to me it was a bit [of a] combined message from Nintendo. In a way I believe Nintendo is dropping their identification, for my part.
“For me, they’re all the time about creating some new expertise, like designing {hardware} and video games collectively to create some new expertise. However Swap 2, as all of us anticipated, is a greater Swap, proper?
“It is a bigger display, extra highly effective processor, increased decision, 4K 120fps. They even had their {hardware} particular person beginning the stream as different platforms do!
“And since it is a greater Swap, the core premise of the entire Swap 2 is – ‘we made issues higher’. And that is one thing different firms have been doing on a regular basis.”
Yoshida reacted coolly to the third-party video games proven working on Swap 2, additionally, noting that whereas many had been widespread – comparable to Cyberpunk 2077, or Elden Ring – they had been additionally pre-existing video games from the previous console technology.
“After all it is a extra highly effective Swap, so it is nice in case your gaming was solely on Nintendo {hardware},” Yoshida continued. “It is the primary time so that you can play wonderful video games like Elden Ring. However for us, like, the core avid gamers, who personal a number of {hardware} and play video games on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, the video games they confirmed off – particularly from third events… In concept it is wonderful to have all these all-stars of business video games on Nintendo {hardware}, nonetheless what they confirmed had been like… oh.”
Yoshida went on to acknowledge the video games Nintendo confirmed that used the Swap 2’s digital camera peripheral and mouse controls, together with Nintendo’s wheelchair basketball sport Drag X Drive (“that is very Nintendo, I used to be very excited”) however urged that the concentrate on simply being a greater Swap was very a lot Nintendo’s important focus.
“I used to be personally a bit disillusioned as a result of they did not disappoint everybody,” Yoshida stated. “As a result of everybody needed that higher Swap in Swap 2.”
Eurogamer’s Ed Nightingale just lately went hands-on with Metroid Prime 4: Echoes on Switch 2 to strive one of many console’s new options – its mouse controls – and see how they fared in comparison with a normal gamepad setup.
