Fans argue if Nintendo deserves „benefit of the doubt” with Switch 2
The internet is in an uproar following Nintendo's Switch 2 decisions. Fans are reckoning with whether they should give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt.
Today, in actually $10, plus the various Switch 2 accessories are charging more and more.
Nintendo fans come to with how they should react to Switch 2 prices
- Nintendo fans come to with how they should react to Switch 2 prices
- The problem with corporations
- The peripheral costs of the Switch 2 add up
- Nintendo hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt
If it wasn’t gray enough, fans are now having to consider the impact of the U.S. government’s sweeping global tariffs, announced just hours after the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct wrapped up. Since then, Nintendo has delayed pre-orders in the U.S. to evaluate, and many expect the price of the new console to go up. So, when many Nintendo fans see an expensive new console paired with games that set new pricing records, it becomes less and less feasible. Do we blame Nintendo? Do we defend them? Some fans are finding it’s not the easiest question to answer.
The Reddit post, shared by u/razorbeamz, is titled “We’re not ‘defending a multi billion dollar company.’” The post claims that these kinds of accusations are thrown at people who are more on the fence about Nintendo’s actions. “Giving Nintendo the benefit of the doubt…” for example, or “saying that despite the shortcomings of something, they’re still interested in it.” The post concludes with “These things are not ‘defending Nintendo.’ They’re simply someone having an opinion that’s not upset.” While the post makes some good points, not everyone in the comments was in 100% agreement.
The problem with corporations
The post has far more comments than upvotes, which feels like a rarity on Reddit. At the time of writing, the post has nearly 900 comments, with only about 230 upvotes. Several of the top comments point out that the only point they disagree with is “Giving Nintendo the benefit of the doubt…” In one comment, u/ned_poreyra says: “Nintendo is a publicly traded company, not a person. There’s no values, personality or preferences behind Nintendo (no matter how much they claim or pretend to be so), there’s only company’s financial interest.” (emphasis added by u/ned_poreyra). Nintendo has built up a lot of goodwill with customers by creating great games for years, and they are testing the limits of that good will right now.
Another , u/Default_Dragon, added: “…one should never ever be giving any corporation ‘the benefit of the doubt’ they are designed to behave as purely selfishly as possible and to extract as much wealth as possible out of their consumers/clients… And listen, I love Nintendo, but that’s because of creatives-- and I can promise you-- the creatives did not come up with this pricing plan… this isn’t the Nintendo of Reggie and Iwata.” For many years, Nintendo has built up the illusion that they are not a gigantic corporation. Accessible consoles and games helped with that, but the current controversies are shattering the illusion for many people. Not everyone sees Nintendo as the friendly video game maker it often claims to be.
The peripheral costs of the Switch 2 add up
As a long-time Nintendo fan, what always drew me to the console and games was its accessibility. The Nintendo Switch was the cheapest of the big three consoles. Sure, it couldn’t run most third-party triple A games, but when I have games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and several Pokémon games, it’s easy to see why fans stick around. The announced $449.99 price (which may or may not be relevant anymore for U.S. buyers like me), while not completely unreasonable, was definitely higher than expected. That might not be too much on its own, but add on top of that an $80 Mario Kart, $90 for a second pair of Joy-Cons, and it gets unreasonable quickly.
The Nintendo Switch 2 has sold itself on being a bigger, more powerful version of the Switch. It has a brand-new Mario Kart, it uses a camera to put you in certain games, it GameCube games will be playable, and you can do it all with your friends, no matter if they are next to you on the couch or across the country. All of this sounds great! Wow, this new Nintendo Switch is a serious upgrade! But you might have noticed that every part of this pitch is an additional cost, not something that comes with the base console.
Let’s do the math. The Nintendo Switch 2 itself is $450. If you like many, want to play the new Mario Kart, make that $500 for the digital only bundle or $530 for physical. From here you have a few options. Either you have some friends online you want to play with, or you have some local friends to play with. Online will cost you a NSO subscription, depending on your tier, this will add either $20 or $50 annually. You’re stuck on the $50 option if you want to play GameCube games. Thankfully, Switch 1 Joy-Cons will work with the new console, so you don’t necessarily need to pay more for friends to locally. But that does require you to have at some point bought the old console too. Add an extra $10 for any Switch 1 games you want to upgrade, via Nintendo Life. The cost adds up quickly. To do everything in that initial pitch, it can easily add up to nearly $700, including annual subscriptions.
Nintendo hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt
The most important detail to note though, is that all these price calculations are before tariffs. The console will likely end up costing more than $450, at least for U.S. buyers, and we will have to hope that doesn’t impact the games and accessories too. So, while you can, and you absolutely should, blame the U.S. government for making terrible decisions that impact everyone (not just when it comes to video games), Nintendo’s prices were already high before they had the excuse.
We should not give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt. They will not drop the prices. If anything, they will go up. If you need proof, just look around the Nintendo eShop. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, an eight-year-old port of a Wii U game, still costs $60. I don’t blame Nintendo for being a corporation that wants to make money, but I won’t ever forget that that is its ultimate goal.
We’ll have to wait to hear about pre-orders sales numbers, and how the console is received on June 5th, 2025, which is still the planned global release date, despite some pre-order delays.
