A reader is surprised at just how positive the response has been to the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal and asks what that means for the console’s success.
So that was all a bit of a letdown, eh? I know it’s the leakers’ fault for spoiling everything ahead of time but not even the biggest Nintendo fan could claim the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal was anything other than anticlimactic… to put things politely.
Don’t get me wrong, nothing looked bad, not even Mario Kart 9, but the whole thing seemed designed to show the absolute bare minimum to count as a reveal. Whether that’s because it was a rushed response to all the leaks or not I couldn’t say but it made one thing very clear: Nintendo don’t want to talk about it right now, so quit asking them about it.
However, there’s something I didn’t realise until reading GC’s overview of the teaser trailer and that’s just how popular it’s been. Gamers basically hate everything and Nintendo has no shortage of loud-mouthed enemies online, so you’d expect the reveal video to be downvoted to hell and back. But it hasn’t been. Out of 15 million views it’s had 950,000 upvotes and just 25,000 downvotes.
That is really surprising to me. Read the comments on YouTube and instead of the viper’s nest of angry complaints you’d expect it’s instead filled with polite approval and lots of joking about Nintendo being Nintendo. Or as the top-voted comment says: ‘That was the most ‘get off my back’ energy I’ve ever seen in a teaser.’
And remember, this is all hardcore gamers. Nobody else is going to be clicking on reveal trailers for consoles this far out or would know what Nintendo is like as a company. That’s just not how casual gamers are. The only conclusion you can make is that even the people known for being irrationally angry about everything are actually perfectly happy with the reveal.
I’ve seen more anger about the redesign of Donkey Kong (even though it was announced over two years ago) than I have the actual reveal, which at worst has been mild disappointment that it didn’t show more. Announcing when the next Nintendo Direct will be helped here, I think, because now we know exactly when there’ll be more info.
There just seems to be a genuine hunger and excitement for the Nintendo Switch 2, that I didn’t necessarily expect. I imagine that’s in part because Sony and Microsoft have been so useless so far this generation. Not just useless but incompetent to a degree they’re actually damaging the games industry at large, as well as their own reputation.
While all that’s been going on, Nintendo has just been trucking along selling one of the world’s most successful consoles ever. Perhaps the most successful, when it finally retries. Nintendo might be weird but they’re not stupid, which is not how I’d describe their supposed competitors. They make weird decisions and take wild risks but they’re always back with a winner pretty soon after and I think gamers are seeing them as a safe pair of hands in these difficult times.
If they follow up the reveal with more revelations (the mystery button!) and a Nintendo Direct with multiple exciting games I don’t see what could possibly go wrong. The Nintendo Switch is going to be massive and Nintendo’s security is going to be settled for another generation.
Do I want Nintendo to have unchallenged control of the games industry? No, that’s not good for anybody or any company. If it has to happen though, would I rather it be them sitting on the throne rather than Sony or Microsoft? Absolutely yes.
Nintendo is run by businesspeople, just like Xbox and PlayStation, but businesspeople that seem to understand and respect what video games are. They don’t stop making them the second they think they’d make more money with something else. They don’t sack thousands of people the first chance they get, and they don’t leave their release schedules barren for months on end due to poor management and trying to jump on the latest bandwagon (and immediately falling off).
Based on this week they don’t make particularly exciting console reveals either but considering how hyped I am for the Nintendo Switch 2 on so little information maybe they don’t need to.
By reader Tacle
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