Switch 2 Launch Coverage | Design Club

Okay. And now we should be live over on YouTube. I figured it out, Jeff. I figured it out. We're actually live live. We're live live over on YouTube. Hello. Hello, Janet. Sorry, that took longer than expected. So, here's what's up. Here's here here's what's up. Um Twitch is having a bad day. Twitch's basement flooded. Uh and they're it's not going well. Um, and by basement flooded, I mean some API calls are down and whatever. Um, so we're gonna do a design club for you over on over over here with uh with Janet um solo and only Janet. Yeah, you you all get exclusive content today. Uh, so that's cool. Uh, let me just tell folks over in the Discord where where we can be found. Uh, let me copy this link

because I've had to do that. Okay, so I figured out Jeff how to do it and I know what the problem was. So in the future we won't have this problem. Hooray. Uh, because for anybody watching, we have never just streamed to YouTube. It's always been Twitch with a rebroadcast to YouTube, which means all of the settings were Twitch dependent. And so when Twitch basement flood, we're like, oh. And Will's been sitting there like a little mad scientist plugging in cables behind the scenes. Yep. Reconnecting all the connects. Yep, that is that is correct. And Pival's been very impressed. Yeah. Uh on YouTube for a special design club while Twitch sorts out their issues. Speaking of which, I should open up the chat. I guess I don't need the mol Oh, I do need the mulch chat if I want to be able to throw chat on screen. That is

correct. Um, so, uh, Janet, while we while we give everybody like a hot second to get in here, I have a question for you that's very important. Uh, which is, how many of you have Switch Twos? Because that's actually a really interesting question that I thought we could ask our audience as we were getting started. Right. So, if you got a Switch 2 in the in in all of the pre-orders and the launches and the everything else, did you get one? Did you wait in line? Did you buy it off a scalper? Did you spend extra time on it? How did that work? Right. Like, or did you do the new thing, which we're going to be talking about, and you went to Costco? Correct. Did you get it day of at Costco like Matt and I did? Right. That's uh very interesting to me because um we'll talk about 100%. Costco is not usually the place you go to to get a day one console, right? Yeah. We're we're going to we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about um and I think I think male has like a

great a great point here, right? That um doesn't want to get it for a while. Waiting for Kirby Riders in Prime 4. That's a big point that we're going to talk about here in a bit, right? uh when we get into the episode proper, we're gonna give it like a couple minutes to like just chat about the Switch 2 and then we'll get into a proper design club episode. There is a danger with that will which I'll talk about which is I did that with the Switch and I still don't have one. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, is that a danger? Right. It might you might I was every other console I've gotten but Twitch was like ah portable. Do I need it? I have my iPad. I have you know my gaming laptop. I have this big Steam catalog. Okay, I'll wait and something will come out that I'll need to get. Yeah. And suddenly the Switch 2 is out. Well, that's another really interesting phrasing, right? For us, I needed I needed to be on the lookout for a Switch 2 because there are opportunities that we will only have if I have a Switch 2,

right? There are content making opportunities. Like for instance, Matt and I have talked about this on stream before over on Breakfast. We really want to get 24 Nebula creators in a Mario Kart race together. That would be so cool. Like just 24 Nebula creators in a call, right? All just I would buy a Switch for that. That right. Yeah. Like when we went out to PAX into design club, I think two of the design clubs we've done, Matt brought his Switch two out and plugged it in and that's what we were, you know, to the audience of hundreds of people sitting there, you know, at the conference, that's what we were playing on, right? And so that there have been compelling reasons to get one before, but I I I actually am going to um in a first, I think, well, not in a first. I I'm a little less up on the Switch 2. And we're going to do a bunch of We're going to do a bunch of talking about the news. We're going to do a bunch of talking about the console. I'm going to give you my thoughts uh because I have one and then we're going to we're just going to talk about a little bit of the why. Um but Jeff, have

you seen the news before we start? I wanted to make sure that you saw the the news link. That is an You can't just say see the news anymore, Will. There's so much news happening everywhere. That's That's my bad. That's my bad. Did you see the news link regarding the Switch 2 launch that I put in our notes? Um, there's three links. Uh, I have not. No, let's see what the Stapler incident. No, we're going to talk about the Stapler incident. We're going to talk about Walmart. And there's a third one, which is, uh, fun fact, the Switch 2 is now the fastest selling console in the history of consoles. Wow. It sold 3.5 million units in 4 days. Costco, baby. Costco. It's all Costco, man. Straight to the moon. Um, so yeah, we should be we should be waiting for the Well, no, I'm I'm I am setting the stage, Jeff. I am I setting our stage. I'm setting everything up. So, um, chat, now that everybody's here, we're going to do the

thing that we always do. We're going to go to black. We're going to record this for our friends over on Nebula, but you all, your comments will still be of great value to us. And we're I'm actually really excited to get to not split my focus and just pay attention to Janet today cuz like normally you're here with Brad, right? And like our focus is unfortunately always a little divided, but today you get all the focus. This is the first time I've ever watching live on YouTube. Yeah. Actually, can we like it's just it's a different layout. I'm looking to see. Yeah, it's it's a very different user experience and some people prefer that user experience, right? Um, the other thing you might want to do is there's a thing called uh top chat, which is which is silly. Top chat is the algorithmically selected best parts of chat. You can turn that off with all of our chats. The best parts. Thank you for that. I have now switched it to live chat. Correct. Um, which I'm actually really happy about. Right. I can I can see the purpose of top chat, right? Like

if if chat is not about conversation, but it's instead about spamming emotes, then I understand that purpose, but that's not why we're here, right? And that's not why you're here. So, I really appreciate that there is the opportunity to like just get all of it cuz I don't want to risk like even if it's just an emote. I know some of you are like sarcastic and pathy enough to make an entire point in one emote and I don't want to miss it, right? Cuz like that's happened before. Uh so I'm really glad for that. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of fun. Like I'm looking at the different UI thing like the fact that you can turn off and on time stamps and a couple of other things. Yeah, correct. Uh oh yeah, top chat no relation to top cat. That is correct. That is that is absolutely uh correct. Um okay, so we're going to go to black. We're going to come back. We're going to play an intro. We're going to do a very brief uh uh we're going to do a very brief intro and then we're going to get into our discussion of the Switch 2. Are you all ready?

I I suppose I should ask, are you ready, kids? And now all of you are having flashbacks while we go to black. All right, be right back. [Music] Good time zone, internet. Hello and welcome to Design Club, the only design show on the internet that's live just on YouTube today because Twitch is having problems. Uh I don't know the nature of their problems, but they're having them. So we're glad to be here for you on Nebula and everyone here on YouTube. Uh I am joined as always by my uh constant design companion, Jeff. Say hi to the people, Jeff. Hi to the people, Jeff. Wait, you usually say hello to the people. So I say hello to the people, but today it is hi to the people. And yes, we're just we're just changing everything up, right? Dogs and cats, Switch 2, you know, raining up, Twitch is down. It's chaos, Jeff. We don't I'm

actually excited. Like, this is the first solo YouTube stream we've ever done. And we would never have done one if Twitch was not crap on fire. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, uh, and it's good because I learned a whole bunch of stuff about streaming just to YouTube and how I have to set that up, uh, and how I have to pivot it. And now we know. And now we know. So, uh, Jeff, it's it's the 12th of June. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. It's the 12th of June, uh, which means the Switch has been out for a week and what a tumultuous week the Switch 2 has had. Um, we're going to So, we're going to sort of break down the launch of the Switch 2. There's going to be kind of two broad halves to this. In the first one, we're going to talk about the launch, and in the second one, we're going to talk about the console. And I guess there's sort of a third synthetic part which is how the launch and the console end up in whether or not like you should buy a Switch. Like if you're here wondering if

you should buy a Switch too, right? We're going to try and do something for that. Now, we understand fully that there's a large category of people for whom that idea at the end there isn't interesting. I promise the rest of this will be um because I know that there are a lot of people who are very firmly in the I am buying a Switch 2 as soon as I can afford it. Locate one uh you know uh I used to be in that camp every console right and there's a whole other category of people that are I have zero interest in the Switch 2 or any games available on the Switch 2. I'm just going to continue to throw money at Gabin with both hands until the sun turns cold and dark. Um and both of those are fine, right? To be clear, both of those are fine and understandable points of view. Uh but we will be trying to like talk about the value proposition that like um that the switch to represents. So um let's start out with with something kind of strange. A first I believe. Okay. Which is Jeff, you don't have a switch

too. No. By the way, if I talk about a switch, unless I like specify OG Switch, I mean the Switch 2. Switch two is just about for this conversation. Yeah. And actually, I was joking before on stream like I used to buy every console. And part of this was because I'm a game designer and play a lot of games. And part of this is because at a different point, I ran a research firm that researched video games in the game industry and we I also played everything. Mhm. But since moving away from the um research studio where we literally had to look at everything, I have more played the games just that I want to play. Will Yeah. And I have a laptop. Yeah. I have a PC. I have a PlayStation. I have an Xbox of various different generations on that. I have an iPad. And I was like, "Oh, I'm going to wait on the Switch, original Switch, till something comes out that I just feel I have to play to pick it up because I have an Xbox, a PlayStation, a

gaming laptop, a gaming PC, and an iPad, like current generation." Yep. That's five pieces of hardware, not counting my phone, that are all set up for games, and all have games on them. Yeah. And so I was like, "Cool. I'll wait for something to come out." and suddenly the Switch 2 is out, right? Like I say suddenly, of course it isn't suddenly, but it's also one of those things that I have so many games I want to play. Mhm. That even things like Tears of the Kingdom was like, "Oh, I should play that." But it didn't work its way to the top of my list because, you know, Elden Ring came out and I jumped on that. I'm gonna say Fallout for a bit or you know I got back into League of Legends or like I'm spending less time on games now because I'm relearning Unity so that I can go make another game. Yeah. Like there's stuff. Yeah. So, uh by the way for for for anyone who's unfamiliar, I am a notorious Tears of the Kingdom hater. Uh if Tears of the Kingdom has

one hater left, it's me. Uh and if there are no more haters, I have left this world. I dislike Tears of the Kingdom intensely and feel like it really missed the mark. I'm gonna say you didn't miss anything. I think you should have played Breath, but you could have played Breath on the Wii U, but not the same. Actually, sorry. I meant Breath. Yeah, Breath is peak. Gears of the Kingdom missed in my opinion. But that's okay. So, you didn't get one. I got one but didn't plan on getting one and reviewers didn't get one, which is weird, right? It's It's not unexpected. It's not. There are plenty of good reasons for it, but we should start out by saying that until the Switch 2 came out officially a week ago, there were no real official reviews. And this is, let's just say, a little bit unusual. Yeah. Because like back in my day, I I've been designing games professionally since 97. Sure. And for a very long time and this so it's ingrained into me which is

you need to get reviews for your game just straight up like reviews are what sell games reviews magazine articles TV spots all of that stuff but the reviews being an important part of it and therefore studios would go out of their way to come get reviewers to check out their game and if what Nintendo like not just for the Nintendo Switch but what that also means will is that theoretically no reviewers were able to go play Nintendo games correct so like excuse me any games on the Switch too. So for all of the studios working on their games for this they also didn't get it. So there like there are hardware reviews cuz people could get hardware and they could go see it at some things but that's not the same thing as owning it because will why couldn't people do reviews? So two reasons two reasons one

they didn't have consoles and two the people that did have consoles didn't and this is a complicated thing so we're going to pick this apart didn't have access to the day zero patch. Mhm. There's a day zero day one patch that unlocked a lot of the features of the switch. So the switches the switch 2 shipped with firmware version 19. The the day one/day zero patch patched the switch 2 to version 19.1 which is necessary to do a whole bunch of things. However, and this is the big however, there is some weirdness about this. It turns out, and I did some looking and uh some a very helpful viewer from Breakfast when we brought this up on Breakfast uh let me know that there's a uh group called Does It Play? and does it play has done an analysis of this and has said that they might have

been able to because the cart the launch cartridges not the downloads the launch cartridges if you had a cartridge for a Switch 2 launch title those all contain version firmware version 19.1 so when you got your Switch and you put the game in it physically that would update your Switch Yes to playable Yes. So, that's kind of that is a good way to do it because that is not just true apparently of launch titles. This is the way the Switch did it and I was unaware of this. So, that's that's 100% on me that the the Switch operating system has the capability of patching itself off of a cartridge if the game on that cartridge requires a specific firmware version. So the every game ships with the bare bone like the the lowest firmware version that's required to play the game. So there's

this complex interchange of if you were going to use the Switch as a pure digital console can't patch until day one. If you if you had a physical cartridge and a physical uh Switch 2, you might have been able to, but then you still have the review embargo because you're going to have to say that you broke embargo. And Nintendo's pretty lawyer happy. Nintendo sued a lot of people for a lot of things and I don't think most uh news groups most most review sites would want to bring Nintendo's eye down on them. Uh it does create well that's a different there's an embargo but like usually and this may be a thing that I just missed in the news. Every manufacturer of both games and hardware will ship out review copies early and basically say do not publish to this date. It's an embargo, but they still want to give you time to look at the thing. That's true. So that you can look at it, assess it, and write your articles. Because when you initially talked about it, I thought this was actually a

breaking embargo thing. Like there have been cases in the past where like Microsoft is like, "Do not sell the Xbox until this date." Sure. And you know, some guy at Best Buy is like, "Screw it. I'm selling a week early." and just starts because you have to ship all of the hardware out there. It's not like it magically appears on the doorstep the day it starts selling. If you're going to get it to any store, you have to ship it to that store and often you want it to get there a couple days early just in case there's a delay so that it's sitting there ready to be sold on the day you want it to be sold, right? And um groups hate it when you break embargo. They're trying to do this big concerted launch and get a lot of hype and if people start selling early, other stores start feeling like, well, maybe I should sell early and suddenly your carefully structured launch plan all falls apart. And that's doubly true of Nintendo, right? We've seen Nintendo over the past couple of years pull out of major uh press events, right? They've

decided instead to go with their own treehouse style or Nintendo Direct model where they do it all inhouse and they have a very carefully curated message that they are giving about their product, right? So, it fits that Nintendo would go to those lengths to avoid people finding out about things early now. And the other interesting thing, and this is another interesting point to this, um, it should be noted that there were two versions of the Switch 2 available for purchase. One of them is the just the Switch 2, and the other one, by my understanding, far more popular, was the Switch 2 with Mario Kart World bundle. That's the one I got. That bundle does not come with a physical cartridge. It comes with the code for Mario Kart World. So, what did anything come with a physical cartridge? Yes, there are games available that do come with a physical cartridge. I believe sorry, but they weren't boxed with the Switch. So, they were separate purchases. So, so nothing in the Switch

box had the firmware with it. Correct. Okay. That's what I Yeah. So that so that even if people got the Switch early and they were posting pictures of like the of the console or like whatever, right? We saw a bunch of pictures leaked on social media of people displaying the white please connect to Wi-Fi and update screen, right? And nothing else because nobody had a cartridge to put in the thing to update. This did somewhat work. There were people who got it earlier than they were supposed to, right? Stores did break embargo on that. Okay. But they were unable to do anything with it, right? And because of the nature of the firmware thing, there's a little less, and I'm not saying there's no, there is a little less concern about the idea that this console requires a call home to update in order to be functional at all, right? Which is a topic of some worry, right? That people want when when Okay, I was talking about this with Matt, right? We both clocked it. It took us about half an hour, maybe a little

more depending on download speeds to get our um to get the Switch set up and to do system transfer and everything else. But when we got consoles when we were kids, it was like open it up, plug it in, put the game in, play 5 minutes, 10 minutes pops. Especially if you're like I think you're misremembering. I can't remember a console I've ever bought that didn't immediately have a uh system patch when I plugged it in. Every PlayStation, every Xbox since the 360 has Jeff, I'm Jeff. Jeff, buddy, buddy. I'm talking about the N64. I don't You're talking about pre-in consoles. Right. Right. Right. Right. I I am just bringing up that for people who are big things from further than 20 years ago. Yes. people who are big believers in physical game conservation, right? Let's get to that in a minute because that is a whole different topic have a concern about this. Right. Right. Yeah. But yeah, let's let's benchmark that for a moment.

But I I will say for the past 20 years because that it is roughly 20 years since the internet fully internet enabled consoles came around which is the 360, the PS3 and the Wii. Yes. I have not seen from that date on picking up a piece of hardware which is a console and not having a day one patch. I agree. I agree. It is uh this is just a very interesting snapshot to compare the way the like to give an honest comparison of ye olden days with the way that it works uh in modernity. I feel like it's almost unfair to compare to that because modern kids have never had that. And what we're talking about is really two different things. A piece of hardware you could play games on or a internet connected piece of hardware that allows you to download games in addition to putting in physical media to play a game on. Like once we got built-in hard drives

and internet connectivity and stores built into the consoles, they just became a different beast. I think that's fair. I And I think there's a larger conversation that we'll have probably a later time about the the interplay between that increase in functionality and the worries that people have about inability to preserve games, right? Like I I think that that's a different topic. But yeah, I I Do you want to just talk about the preserving for a minute? Yeah, just for like a quick second, right? Like let me talk Let me say this from Microsoft, Xbox, and Sony. They don't care. Just straight up. They are not building internet game preservation machines. They are building consumer merchandise hardware to sell that they you will pay money for and that you will then buy games for. Right? conservation is not a thing that they are that they care about or and or are building in. However,

and but other people care about conservation a lot and have arbitrarily picked certain pieces of hardware and says, "Oh, these are good places to preserve things." But they're doing it they're playing in somebody else's garden. Like if you're going to go make a game for Xbox and Xbox is suddenly like, "Hey, you now need to do this, you're playing in their garden." If you're in the iOS store and they're like, "Hey, this is how you do monetization or you don't get to be in here." You're like, "Oh, yes. This is how we do monetization or we don't get to be in here." Right? Like, so when you're played in somebody else's garden, they're the ones who set the rules. And if you pick something to do in it that they suddenly decide is obsolete. Like I can't tell you how many YouTube features have been deprecated or Twitch. Same. We used to have community subtitles on YouTube. They deprecated that feature because like not enough people use it. We're like, "Hey, we use it. People subtitle our videos." So if you're over, you know, in India, you can

watch an extra history or in Brazil or, you know, all of Not anymore. like they're deprecating anyway. Yeah, it is just part of existing in the modern space. I agree. I think but I I agree that that is the company position and I agree that that is an unfortunate fact of living in that place. However, there are groups that of uh consumers that care a lot about this and want to know to what degree that wall like how high are the walls on that garden, right? How many gates are there in those walls? To what extent do I have control over this $500 piece of hardware that I own? Right. You own the hardware. Correct. So, how do I like what to what extent is that? If the hardware is nonfunctional until it calls home, do I really own it? Right. And those questions, you still own the hardware. Right. Right. And this gets into a whole other issue which

we'll probably tackle at a later point called right to repair which is that's a whole kettle of worms we're not going to get into. But it is it is worth noting that that is one of the big stories that's been a part of this launch is it needs to patch to do anything right either from a cartridge or from a call home. that has been a a big part from the from the game preservation side of the consumer um base, right, about this console launch, right? That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's not necessarily a good thing. It is just an element of the news that I think the thing that and it's funny what's really it reminds me a little bit is um basically it's kind of like the MMO or the live service game thing. Yeah. It's like if somebody's like, "Do I own It's like I play League of Legends. Do I own my game? I was like, no, you you bought a you well, you didn't pay for League of Legends. It's free, but you know, you bought your hundreds of dollars worth of skins or whatever things. If tomorrow,

right, it's like, hey, we're shutting League down or they will. Yeah. Did you hear Blizzard shut down Overwatch one? Right. Yeah. That's that's a whole thing, right? like there there's not a lot you can do like we're getting to the point where consoles are becoming like that in some cases and uh Nintendo consoles are no stranger to that. The 3DS and Wii U eHop went down, right? which is why um in a in an absolute incredible attempt to preserve games, people were downloading all of the games off of the eShop so that they would have them on a physical device that would exist beyond the demise of the eShop, right? But okay, it's a and that's also one of the things like I think one of the reasons Steam has been so popular is Steam basically says, "Hey, as long as Windows possibly Linux, but Windows exists. You

know, you have a place to play your games mostly, like depending on how the game was built, if it can still exist in a modern environment. But, you know, and that's kind of the Xbox, Microsoft, Nintendo store promise now is, you know, there are games that you bought for the last PlayStation that work on this PlayStation because they're digital and they move along with the architecture. Yeah, I think that's true. So, like they're actually building emulators into modern consoles to emulate their old own old consoles so that you can play those games. So, and Nintendo's following in those footsteps, right? Nintendo is following in those footsteps. They say 99.9% of Switch One games will play on the Switch 2. That remaining 0.1% is like a weird nebulous small group of outliers, including things like Ringfit because the new Switch doesn't have the IR sensor that Ringfit needs. So, you can connect a Switch One Joy-Con with the IR

sensor to play Ringfit, but by default, it doesn't work, right? Because that hardware isn't included anymore. So, there there is some there there is some loss there, but it's very small. It is edge cable. This, by the way, is way better. Like, if you owned PlayStation 2 games, those didn't play on the PlayStation 3. And most PlayStation 3 games didn't play on the PlayStation 4. Like, the compatibility issue is something that or you know, you didn't get PlayStation 1 to two or two to three. Like, they've built that in now. So, they're you're actually in the long term, you are better off on games now than you used to be. I agree. with digital purchases. I think what happens is we get pain points. We get pain points for much beloved for much beloved games and people go, I can't play this without the original hardware. I can't play that. And they point at one specific thing. And I'm not saying that they don't have a a point, right? But they still have an absolute point. You want to play the game, you have city,

right? But it but it's a small fraction of overall games, right? Okay. Anyway, we could talk about that forever. That's probably a different design club. Let's keep talking about news around the Switch 2. So, but anyway, so they didn't launch with review copies or review hardware and there something I'd wanted to say, but we kept bringing up preservation, so I wanted to address that. Like, yeah, on the hype, I think Nintendo just thinks they don't need it. I agree that that's true. And just straight up like the possibility of some negative press or bad things out like is more dangerous to them like or excuse me not getting reviews is less dangerous than possible bad reviews mucking up this carefully planned and orchestrated thing that they have that seems to been going really well. Yeah, like I think if they'd had a couple of snafoos and the sentiment wasn't as strong around this looks cool, they might have broken down and sent those out, but I think they looked and said, "Nope, we don't need to." I also

think that um they got an unexpected boom that helped that hype that helped them keep goodwill and and that is that the console price didn't change when the tariffs got announced. They got a lot of goodwill out of that, right? Because people were worried that it was going to go up and they were like, "Nope, console price is staying the same." I think that if that had moved, they might have done review copies or done other things to generate positive hype. But yeah, it's hard to know, but that definitely that helped. Correct. Agreed. Okay, so other things that happened, we got we got we got two very interesting stories. Uh one one positive, one negative. Um, and they're both not Nintendo's fault, but they are things that have been very much in the uh in the ecosystem. So, thing one, a singular GameStop took it upon themselves as a methodology of loss prevention

to staple receipts to the Switch two box. Some products this was would probably have worked fine with. Correct. On the Switch 2, it doesn't because the Switch 2 unit is directly below the box with no additional padding. So, they stapled directly into the Switch 2 screens. Now, one GameStop and they replaced all the switches. I want to be very clear. GameStop immediately said, "That's 100% our bad. We will replace all of them. Just bring it. We'll replace them all." Mhm. But it is a weird story that like immediately dominated the news. And then there's been this whole like sub channel about like whether or not the Switch 2 is properly packaged and like should Nintendo be blamed for like companies putting staples through your box and all of this in an extenduating circumstance. By the way, we're learning more about this. The reason that they use staples is that the glue that they were using to hold like tape on wasn't working because

the AC in that GameStop was broken and so that it was too hot for the tape to hold. And so like there were all of these extenduating circumstances that led to this and people are like Nintendo should be blamed for having insufficient packaging on the Switch 2 and that's been a story. I don't know that that's actually a story. I think that the story is GameStop screwed up and immediately fixed it. Yeah. Through a weird thing like if there AC's out that's also on them usually because like poor maintenance. True. I could also see employees being like glue isn't working. We need to do a thing. You know what? You know what it strikes me as? And if you've ever worked retail, you know exactly what kind of decision I'm talking about. It feels like a district manager decision. It feels like someone who is so deeply out of touch. Just do it. I am your boss's boss. I am your boss's boss's boss. You need to do this because loss prevention and like all of this is policy, right? This is now the

policy. and that person is high enough up that they can't be told this is a stupid idea, but they definitely had a stupid idea. This very much smacks of like they had a good idea. Loss prevention. Sure. They had a bad implementation. Yes, that's fair. Stapling Well, yes, absolutely. Stapling things to boxes is bad. Don't Don't puncture container, kids. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Just like don't use the glue that never comes off on stuff. I just We just got What was it? Pass this to our local zoo. Actually San Diego has a me not the zoo balo park will sometime when you come out and visit me. Yeah 100 years ago in San Diego it wasn't the world's fair actually longer like 15 but it was something like it. Yeah. And that whole area got turned into a city park and has remained a city park and has like 20some museums, two theaters. Like it's the San Diego Zoo is next to it. And you can buy if you're a resident a pass that'll get you into every museum for the entire year for you and your family for like a hundred bucks. That's dope. In-N-Out

privileges. Some of the best museums in Southern California. Yeah. They put this sticky thing to like attach it to the paper they mail it out to that doesn't come off for like half a year. So every time you stick it in your wallet, it's like sticking to the side of anyway. It's gross. Yeah. No. Like Yeah. Some packet just like staples. Don't use that. Yeah. Uh someone was asking how that's loss prevention. Um one of the ways that you one of the sort of tenants of loss prevention is coupling physical items with proof of purchase. Um that's that's a thing. So you can't like have it set up so that someone sneaks a receipt back in and then grabs the switch to off the wall and then claims that they already bought it and presents a receipt that's already been used. Right. So you need to pair each receipt with the item that the receipt represents. That's basically if you bring the receal in alone without the switch, they're like, "Well, right, this was we know this was attached to the switch, right? And so that therefore we

think you're trying something sneaky." Correct. So there's, you know, there's a bunch of Anyway, so that was one of the stories. The other good story was, and I gotta be very careful when we do this. I really dislike Walmart. Okay, I think that Walmart's consumer practices are not good. Okay, I am not defending Walmart, but they had a brilliant Abs I game recognizes game. They had a brilliant marketing strategy, which is that if you ordered your Switch 2 through Walmart, every Switch 2 that was ordered through Walmart came with a reusable Walmart tote bag, a bottle of Coke, and a can a fullsize can of Pringles. Total cost of the company sub $3, I would guess. Significantly sub $3 to to add that into every order, right? And they they make far more profit on the Switch, too. and your car are on a branded thing that says Walmart. Correct. And they've got a huge huge

uh upswell of like positive press for Walmart because they rode the coattails of the Switch 2 and included this thing that was like that's trivial for them but feels like a great gesture, right? Cuz like you know what's funny? If they'd said it comes with a $5 Walmart gift certificate, nobody would have cared, right? Yes, I agree completely. But because it comes with like people the the monetary value is not the point, right? It's a cool thing. We you run into this all the time, particularly with gamers, particularly with trading cards, okay? Cards that are valuable and cards that are cool do not necessarily overlap. Sometimes valuable cards are cool. Sometimes valuable cards are not very cool and are just sort of bog standard, right? Lands come into mind for magic, right? And so often times, sometimes you want to conserve value and you want the valuable thing. And sometimes what you really want to crack in a pack is something that's cool, right? You want like like the cool alt art that's not

worth maybe as much as the really expensive thing, but is an interesting story, right? Or that has utility. Yes. Like if you open if you open the new set of Magic cards and you're like, "Cool." Yeah. You know, you find the common that you're going to know you want four of in your deck. Yeah. is not valuable, right? They're commons, but you're like, you know, I need four lightning bolts or, you know, whatever the thing is, you're like, oh, good. I got one. I'm going to use it, right? Yes. And just like that, now no one was expecting to get a drink and a snack, but they got a drink and a snack and that was nice and it was a cool experience, right? Um, so I think it's, you know, that that's been the other dominating stories. And and the very interesting thing about both of these is that up until like yesterday, today, that was pretty much the only chatter. The the pre-orders, uh, while pre-orders were a problem, post launch, the process of getting a Switch was relatively straightforward. Midnight launches happened across the country. I didn't

hear anything bad about them. I saw lots of pictures of social media of people happy, smiling, hanging out with other gamers getting their Switch twos. That was it. And I think that that's really I cannot stress this enough how important that is that it was just a good launch. Yeah. Right. That it was just low drama. Low drama. High like high efficacy. The fact that people are talking about a single GameStop that effed up with its staples tells you how low drama the launch was. Exactly. And getting to the big news that was released, I think yesterday or today, it worked because the Switch 2 is now the best the fastest selling, I believe, is the official metric console ever. Yeah, cuz you can't say best selling ever because correct. We don't know how many they will sell eventually, but we do know that in the first four days of its existence, the Switch 2 sold 3.5 million units. Now, that does include pre-sales. That does include pre-orders.

However, even accounting for that, they all include pre-orders. Like people pre-ordered the 360 and the, you know, PS4 and the XON and huge, right? Absolutely. God forsakenly massive launch, right? And a complete success. So, I know why. Why is that, Jeff? They sold them at Costco. Yeah. So, let's had pallets of Switch Twos, right? Pallets of Switch Twos, right? And if you're in Costco, Costco is the place that's just like it's the low drama. You know you are mainstream when you're there pallets of your thing at Costco. Okay, let's back up real quick. Let's let's do let's do a quick uh Costco is a company largely operates in North America. It is a wholesale club. You pay a membership fee to join. And Costco offers wholesale prices for common consumer goods. Um you can buy like uh you know if you go to your local store and you buy like a fourack of energy drinks at Costco, you can buy a

whole pallet or a whole um you know tray of like 24. Yeah, you'll get your 24. This is where you buy your 16 pack of um toilet paper or your case of Coke or your multi cartons of milk. Correct. It's equivalently all of the staples. And one of the big things about Costco is they are aggressive with their price negotiation with vendors, but not in the same way Walmart is. They don't burn them, but they and they also are very known for um their diligence on their products. Yes. Like if they're selling two white shirts, they will only be selling two white shirts. There'll been 100 people vendors that came to get in and Costco will have had its buyers look for price and quality to find that happy medium and they'll only carry the two that have been vetted. Yes. So everything there is vetted. It's well priced. They have an amazing return policy. They treat their workers well. They pay them well. And it's it's like it is the model of the business you want

to run. Correct. Um and they also carry by the pilot load electronics. Y and so it being in a place that is well reported to be an excellent place to shop. Right. If you live in driving distance of a Costco, chances are you either have a Costco membership, know someone who's has a Costco membership and you've gotten them to get you stuff or you've thought about getting a Costco membership, right? Like it is synonymous with if you have a family that you were trying to feed, especially with young children. Yeah. Yeah. You go to Costco. And as Compsite Jedi said, they maintained a hot dog and drink meal at their food court for $1.50 50 for an exceedingly long time without ever raising the price. Yeah. For which they are also beloved. Yes. Correct. So, uh that's really interesting, right? That that um we got a lot of uh sales at the the the big four, right? So, the big four in this case are Target, Walmart,

um Best Buy, GameStop in the US, right? And GameStop's only there because it's a game thing, right? But and Best Buy kind of only there, but Target and Walmart are really really big. And then Costco on the day Costco is not where you think usually to go out to buy video games. Correct. And Costco, they have them, but yes, Costco also didn't do pre-orders. On the morning of, I got a message from Matt first thing in the morning. Hey, you have a Costco membership. They're selling Switch 2 at Costco. No pre-orders. And they built in um uh sort of anti-hoarding measures, right, which Costco is pretty good at. Um because it's one it was it's one console per membership per week. That's it, right? And because they have a membership because you have to be a member of Costco to shop there, they have a way to control sales. And it also wasn't a thing they had to set up on the fly because they have plenty of things like that that they sell where they'll

have a manufacturer is like you're only allowed to buy two of these TVs at a time or Yes. Like they will put things on discount. You know, we're selling kitty litter at discount. You're only allowed to buy eight cases of kitty litter at a time. And this is also something they had to put in because their prices are cheap enough. People would often go there, buy a lot, and then go like resell them somewhere. Yes. And Costco wasn't interested in that. They were interested in the people who come in who are members having the stuff on the shelves, right? So, they just took that system and they're like, "Cool, click." Right. And as part of the deal, this is very interesting. So, Costco Costco had them morning of. You needed to have a membership. My dad ordered his uh ordered mine for me from his phone. I messaged my I texted my dad. I was like, "Hey, dad, you have a Costco membership, right? Can you order me one?" And he ordered me one from his phone. Okay. And and then I found out, and this is fascinating, they offered free US-wide overnight shipping,

which is not cheap. That is not a cheap add-on, by the way. There's a reason that a lot of people pre-ordered to like go get theirs in person, right? That that is not a cheap add-on for for something, right? So that that was in my opinion I don't think we can understate the the impact of that on like people's positive experience with Costco. A no pre-orders to worry about. B you buy it you feel like your membership is increased in value cuz you got a thing that it is a little hard to get right now. Mhm. C overnight shipping. D no hassle. There's no hassle. Unlike a lot of other places where the websites went down and there were long lines. None of that. There was none of that with Costco of all places, right? So, I I think Jeeoff that you're right that there is something about it hitting big and hitting the mainstream that is really exemplified by you can just buy it at Costco. Like, you don't have to go to the weird place that only gamers go to

that's GameStop. You don't like literally like I bet there were hundreds of thousands of people going into Cos across the US a couple days ago that went, "Oh, cool. The Switch is out." and picked one up as they walked by and kept going. Yep. Yeah. It's uh it's very interesting. So, I Yeah, I think that that sort of and that combined with the sales numbers really shows how how well this launch went like as a launch, right? Just and again, we're not talking about the console yet. We're just talking about the process of launching a console and delivering a product seamlessly to people that want to purchase. Nintendo's team in charge of that A+ got all A's. Like they aced it. Like there have been plenty of other launches of any number of things that have not gone well. This one was went so well. We're talking about the single GameStop that stapled things to a thing. Mhm. Like which is pretty amazing. So good job

team Nintendo on that. Good good team. Good job team. Manufacturing and supply and distribution and marketing and PR and the whole group getting along to get everything out on the launch. Yeah, they did it. Yeah. Uh PS, I've just gotten a fascinating update. Uh we now have someone to blame. Uh Cloudflare is the reason that your internet is being stupid today. Please look forward to it. We'll talk about it on Monday. Um what's going on with Cloudflare? They're having a major outage, which is why Twitch and a bunch of other services are having a very bad day. Um, so, uh, anyway, interesting. I If Cloudflare is having it, something's going on. Correct. Because Cloudflare is pretty stable. Yeah. Yeah. Does. Uh, yeah. Um, so anyway, funny story. Well, on Cloudflare. Yeah. Besides the lava lamps. Sure. Um, I know the founder from college. Oh, that's really cool. I used to eat like lunch and dinner with him.

Like he was a associate, not a friend. But like I knew him on a first-name basis. We ate dinner together. He used to he was the one of the main writers of the student newspaper. Wrote a great article about our fantasy and science fiction guild once taking over the student government of the college. Like yeah, it just like it's so weird to see that he's the one that went and started it. Smart guy. Anyway, um okay. So that's why we're not on Twitch. That That is why we're not on Twitch. Uh so let's talk about So all of that being said, Will, yes. Did you get your Switch? I did. I have it in front of me. I have in first impressions. Like, hey, what do you think? Okay, so I the complicated, right? Uh if if you've ever known me to like give an opinion on something, I'm trying much better to be more nuanced in these. Overall, I think the hardware is great. I think it's it's much bigger. It's it's much bigger. The screen is much brighter. The uh screen

is clear. How does it feel, by the way, when you hold it? It's got some heft to it. Um the uh the the lock on mechanism for the uh controllers, right, is is very satisfying. That's right. Those are magnets. Do they have a cool click when they go in? Yeah. And um let's see if I can if I can show it. So if you if you look on the look on the screen Mhm. look on the screen when I attach it, it does a little thing that like shows, right? It's a lot of nice a lot of little touches, right? Um uh the setup was kind of interesting. Uh it took about half an hour. Some of that, a reasonable portion of that was doing the system transfer from my switch one that you can only do at setup. You are never offered the opportunity to do a system transfer again. If you want to do a system transfer again, you have to factory reset your Switch 2. So, if you're going to do one, do it then. It makes sense. You can do partial

transfers, but the only way to get the full wizard to do the full system transfer is at first boot, which I think that's true of things like phones and other stuff as well. I I I give it grief every time it comes up to be honest. I think it's a bad decision in general, but um you know uh so uh that's a whole thing. Oh, chat really really wants to know. I am not licking a Switch 2 game. You don't want to watch me throw a bunch. You just put it in your mouth while you were like No, no, sorry. That's the That's the controllers. What they're talking about is that the is that the physical cartridges for switches um are are coated in a biterant because they are so small. So this is this is a switch cartridge. This is uh Breath of the Wild. This is not Oh, wait, wait. Literally something that makes it taste bad to keep kids from putting it in their mouth. Correct. Go Nintendo. That's Yeah, it's very It's embedded in the plastic. It never goes away. It tastes awful. Uh and it became a meme to like still think sticks things in their mouth. I am 100% on this. Um Yeah. Yeah. They're incredibly better. So, um so

there's that. Uh I like the I like the the JoyCons. Um, I do like uh I paired all of my old Switch One accessories. Works pretty well. Um, the dock is nice. Uh, it's got some good heft to it. Physically, I like this a lot. I think this is a high quality physical product. I don't uh there are some concerns about stick. I've never had a Nintendo product with stick drift, though I empathize with the idea that stick drift is a problem. But from a physical perspective, I like this console a lot. I think it feels much better than the Switch one to play physically, whether it's using the Joy-Cons, using it in handheld mode, whatever. Um, okay. That having been said, the software experience is fine. When you say software, do you mean the games or the operating system? A little of uh mostly the operating system, right? There's not a lot of bells and

whistles. It doesn't. Now, I'm not like a power user of the Switch, but like it's fine. Like, it didn't it didn't blow me away. It's snappy. It looks clean. It's very pretty, but it doesn't I don't know what I expected, but there's not a lot of room to like impress. Okay. Right. Like, there's not a lot of room to impress on the on the software aspect. Um, it's just fine, right? Which is, you know, as to be expected. Um, and I'm last I was just kind of curious because like consumer hardware unboxing and feel like in a way it didn't used to be the case. I think now more than ever there really is a lot around kind of the heft and weight and balance of your phone or yes other things that people don't necessarily think of but as a designer like I pick up all things all the time and I can tell kind of the cheaply manufactured versus medium versus more expensive. Like who would have thought years ago

that people would like be figuring out where to put things in the phone to make it more ergonomical to hold so it wasn't like more weighted one way or the other. Yeah. Right. It's just it's interesting what becomes I agree. Things you then identify as does it feel good. Yes. Absolutely. I I definitely agree with that. Oh, also the kickstand's much better. Oh, I heard that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The kickstand's a whole a whole thing and not just a little flimsy like one. Mhm. Um so that's nice. The kickstand is no longer an afterthought. Correct. The kickstand is and it's included in the boot up tutorial of like how you can use your Switch too, right? Which is like you can use it handheld mode or you can put it on a table in desktop mode or you can plug it into the dock in docked mode, right? Um oh that that's that's a really great question. Um the eShop feels fine. It is still the eShop. I still would prefer to navigate that with a keyboard, but I am also like a I have had a Ethernet jack plugged in

between my computer and my skull since I was about seven. So like I am I am all over like keyboard and mouse is like my primary means of navigating things. Um it does have a touchcreen if you're in handheld mode, but if you're in dock mode that doesn't do much. Um it's it's it's fine. Um the uh interesting thing about like sort of the compatibility as well is that they've got a lot of like when you log into the eShop, you don't actually log into the eShop on the console. You log into the eShop and it shows you a QR code and then you scan the QR code on your phone and then the phone authenticates for you. So, if you're logged into your Nintendo account on your phone, you scan the QR code, it logs you in, and then it gives you a code to send back to the um it gives you like a alpha numeric code to send back to the Switch to confirm that it's you. Okay, which is nice. I do like that bit. Although, I am also given to understand that later on in the Switch one's life

cycle that was more of a thing um as well. I don't think the eShop is plenty snappy, too. I know it was pretty laggy on the Switch one, but um yeah, let's talk games real quick, though. Okay, so so consoles in general. I am going to I'm going to go a limb. Consoles are not sold because they're consoles. Consoles are sold because they're rare exceptions. The PlayStation 3. Sure. PS3 grant PS3 exception granted. Sometimes I really want a Blu-ray player that can also be part of a Beaolf cluster. Um you know, you know. Uh, other than that, other than that, consoles are sold as a delivery mechanism for a game that you really want in some hopefully games. Hopefully games, right? Right now, it's game. It is game. There's uh I saw a statistic and I'm not 100% sure on this, but I saw that it was roughly 88% market penetration on Mario Kart World, which is

Yeah, that's wild, right? I wonder if the Costco only bundled it with the Mario only sold the Mario Kart bundle. You could buy either one, but most people from my understanding bought the Mario Kart bundle, right? Um, so, uh, the, um, Mario Kart World is definitely the closest thing to a killer app that the new console has. I am not saying that the Donkey Kong game is bad, merely that the Donkey Kong game was not advertised terribly well or interestingly, I don't get it. It doesn't have the charm or appeal of Mario, right? I'm not saying Donkey Kong is a bad character, but like they were talking about destructible terrain as like the big selling point of like digging around in destructible terrain, and that's not a thing that like really appeals to me unlike their last Mario title which they were using to really drive the Switch sales which was the Odyssey um which was Odyssey with like the whole like cap capture you can be different enemies thing that felt like a better cell than this does.

Donkey Kong is a brand neutral thing. Like if you look at what does Nintendo have? Cool. A Mario Kart title, a Donkey Kong title. Like it doesn't seem weird. It's like a thing Mario has. Yeah. Um so I think I think Mario Kart's the big thing. Um yes, that is also true. Oopsie is correct. Um it is not 80. Uh Mario Kart on its own is 80. Donkey Kong on its own is 70. So, the price break may make some difference to some people, but again, for most people, Mario Kart's 50 because you bought it with a console. Um, but that's it. Unless you count What do you mean by that's it? For Nintendo first party titles, there are like three meaningful first party Nintendo titles. And I'm going to put air quotes around meaningful. Okay. Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong, and the $10 should have been free on every unit, but isn't for

some reason, I don't understand, Switch to Tour app thing. I don't understand which executive thought it was cool to charge 10 bucks for that, but they were right. And I hate that they were right. It's like number three or four on the on the Steam on the Switch charts. I'm literally I wonder how many parents bought that thinking it was a cheap game. Yep. Uh, as of hold on, let me let me me look at the bestsellers list. Bestsellers list, Welcome Tour is number five. Some well, some executive made Nintendo a lot of money. Yeah, a lot of money. Now, um, plus Oh, will a year from now they're going to say comes free with bundle. Yeah. Right. Or something, right? Yeah. So, maybe they'll just leave it up there and, you know, rack up like 50 million in sales over, you know, sure, five or 10 years and, right,

anyway. Um, so, uh, so it's Mario Kart, which is, um, number one. Oh, wow. I didn't even realize this. Okay. Donkey Kong is not on the top selling page at all. Oh, so this is going to get me to the point which I want to talk about for a second. But so one of the things about consoles is people will often hold off buying them until there is the killer app, the mustplay game. You know, the Halo 3 for the 360. Oh, wait. Chat's saying that Donkey Kong isn't available right now. Okay, that makes sense. I thought it was a launch title, but it's not. That's very So there was only one Nintendo one first party launch title. Great. Awesome. make makes my point so much easier. Go on, Jeff. Oh, that a lot of people will hold off on buying in some cases until there's the game they want to play, the killer app, the killer game that and that's that is historically for game hardware what has moved it. And Nintendo

might have thought honestly Mario. So Will, yes, before I get to the other thing, go with me on this rabbit hole for a moment. Sure. Say you're Nintendo. Yep. And you're looking at your slate of titles that are going to come out in the first three years of the Switch 2 that you're making. Not the third party stuff. They don't control the third party stuff in the same way they do their own stuff. And they look at this and they say, "Okay, the average video game family buys two to three games a year, right? and they look they're like, "hm, we have five games that are going to come out, first party games in the next three years." I'm picking a random number. I wonder if they literally looked at that and said, "Cool, we're going to space these out so that every six months or, you know, maybe we'll have another one come out a month after launch, but you know, we're going to space these out so that there will always be for Timmy's

birthday and for Christmas you know, one or two Nintendo first party things that the person doesn't yet own, right? That they literally might have pulled back on that just because they have a limited slate of capacity of what they make. Yeah. I'm not saying that's true, but that is a possibility that they have looked at the amount of sales that their typical purchaser buys of games and just said, "We don't need to have more than that." I think that's fair. And I think that there's a compelling argument that Donkey Kong Bonanza is there to make people remember that they have a Switch 2 a month after it comes out, right? Cuz like and and my confusion is deeply rooted in the fact that when they talked about launch titles, Donkey Kong Bonanza was always paired with Mario Kart. And I was like, "Okay, cool. It's either of those, right?" Um there is a thing where sometimes people will give a window of like two months for considering what a launch title is. That's fair. Yeah. That it isn't it isn't day zero launch. is these were available in the launch

window of the console. That's a very good point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um and so currently if you are a Nintendo fanboy fan girl fan person, there is one game that you can only play on the Switch 2 sort of because the number two on the bestseller list is a $10 game game. The $10 upgrade to Tears of the Kingdom to the Switch 2 edition and the Breath of the Wild is number six. Three is Cyberpunk, four is Delta Rune, by the way. Five is Welcome Tour, six is Breath of the Wild upgrade. So, out of the top six, two, actually, can we just read off the top 10? Yep. Top 10 right now as of time of recording are Hold on. Hold on. So, January 12th, uh, if you're looking at Pacific time, just after noon, June June. Jeff, wait. What did I say? You said January. Oh, it's a J month. June. June 12th. Right.

Okay, cool. Um, best sellers as of right now. Number one, Mario Kart World. Number two, Tears of the Kingdom Switch upgrade pack. Number three, Cyberpunk 2077. Number four, Delta Rune. Number five, uh, Nintendo Switch 2: Welcome Tour. Number six, Zelda Breath of the Wild, uh, upgrade pack. Number seven, Fantasy Life. Number eight, uh might be first party n uh Bravely Default. Um number, uh nine is Street Fighter 6. Number 10 is No Man's Sky. And No Man's Sky is also 60% off. It's uh it's the only title on that list that's on sale and it's 60% off. How much is it selling for? Uh it is currently selling for $24. It normally retails for 60. They really want to get people into the Switch eco. Well, I will also point out game that has ongoing sales. Correct. They also did an up they also did made the Switch 2 uh upgrade for the Switch

one version free I believe. And they also released an update at the same time. And No Man's Sky updates at this point are just like Sean stop. Stop. Let us give you money for this please buddy. Like you're just make Yeah, right. Bravely is square. Right. That's true. I wasn't sure if Bravely Default was being produced in Square and Nintendo are so often confused because they're so tightly in synergy that um Yeah. Interestingly, well, you said Cyber Punk was three. Cyber Punk is number three. So, there is a mature rated game with Nudity that is in the top three, which isn't all that surprising. We're going to talk about it. We'll talk about it eventually. They ported the Switch store like in its entirety, right? So like all of the Switch titles are there and then all the Switch 2 titles which means that if you scroll down not terribly far you start getting hentai on on like the main thing. So the parental controls are still intact as well which is good because of that. But like it is kind of interesting that Nintendo has this very family-friendly

persona and then their online shop has mature rated games very highly rated has uh essentially AO games very highly rated um as well and I think that's one of the interesting things where there are people who for their experience with gaming play on the Switch. Yes. They don't buy gaming PCs. You know, they have a phone or an iPad or something, but that isn't quite the same thing as a Switch 2, but they're not they are not in the Xbox or PlayStation ecosystem. They don't have a gaming PC. And so, for a lot of these people, you know, we're talking about what's the killer app. The fact that the Switch 2 is now powerful enough to play Cyberpunk or to play Civ 7 or some of these other games is also like part of their killer app thing. It they're exposing a library of, you know, the past 5 years worth of amazing games. Yeah. That were not playable on the

Switch One from a hardware perspective that are suddenly now the entire library is now available for the Switch 2. So even though Nintendo only has that one entry, there's a whole bunch of fantastic games that if you are entirely in the Nintendo ecosystem, right, you never had access to before. Yeah. And so and the other the other big group of people that we're talking about is you, Jeff, right? In what world if you were if if I said, Jeff, I need you to buy a Nintendo console for a thing. It's a work thing. You got to do it. Is there a world where you would buy a Switch One anymore? No. And I think part of that is the price difference like and like kind of getting into the reasons to buy. Like if you were like, "Jeff, you need to go." Actually, if you said, "Jeff, you need a portable console. We're all going to be going somewhere, right? And we're going to be playing games for a week together." Sure. I Okay. Yes. There is

another there's a dark horse in that race. But yes, we'll we'll we'll go with your model that it's it's it's a Nintendo not a Steam Deck. Yeah, it's not a Steam Deck, right? Yeah. No, I'd be all in on the Steam Jack train, but Okay, cool. So, it's a Okay, but yeah, like if I was going to go look at it, like actually Will, how much is a Switch One right now? Switch one is uh $300 uh for a base version for like the launchish version, right? And $335 if you want an OLED. Okay. Which is I'd probably want an OLED at this point. Yeah. So 335 and a Switch is 500. Uh Switch is 450, but the com but the common bundle and we we've actually got a uh I pulled this up. Oh yeah, just so if you if you want Mario Kart, so it's an exact comparison. Mario Kart World versus Mario Kart 8, it's $500 for the Switch 2 with Mario Kart World or 356 for the Switch One with Mario Kart 8. So $144 different. Yeah, I

would buy a Switch 2. like the fact that this is the newest hardware and will last me for, you know, the next 8 to 10 years until Mario or Nintendo puts out the three, right? Um, like I can't see a world where I wouldn't spend that difference to get basically almost a decade newer hardware, right, with all of the games that it therefore entails could play and the full backwards compatibility where I could then be like, "Oh, there are Switch One games I want, right? I can still buy them and play them, right? It doesn't lock you out of anything. Right. If if we were in a case where backwards compatibility was less robust, there might be a stronger argument for having a switch one. But because we don't, there's not as much because, as you said, it's the 99 something% correct. transfers over. Yeah. I can't see a world where if I was going to be spending that much for a gaming console that I wouldn't buy the one that equivalently is going to last the next decade. I completely agree. I think I I'll I'll freely admit that if you're

going to buy a Nintendo console right now, buying a Switch 2 is the sensible move, assuming you can get one and can afford the price. Like, I need a console and it is going to be Nintendo, right? Switch makes sense. But, oh, and if you're just somebody who likes buying the new gaming hardware to see what it is, correct? But strong argument, too. Right. We're I'm also going to stipulate that there's a large group of people that have already checked out because they've already got their Switch 2. By the way, if you're watching this on a Switch 2, sound off in the comments cuz I feel like that's cool and meta. Um the there is a group of people all of that being said, right? If you already have a Switch One, and there's nothing wrong with your Switch One, I don't know that Nintendo has yet made a super compelling case to upgrade. Unless, and there's another big carve out, unless your killer game is out, and

that's going to be different for everyone, right? For some people, that's going to be Mario Kart World. For some people, that's going to be Legends ZA. For some people, that's going to be Metroid Prime. For some people, that's going to be Kirby Air Ride. For some people, for some people it might be cyberpunk. For some people it might be waiting for your portable system to play Cyberpunk on and you're like, "Cool, it's now here." Yes. But yeah, if it isn't, you're right. Will like you could wait another year or two or three because there are also plenty of good games on the Switch One and there isn't yet the huge tipping point of well, of course you would buy like it's not it's not an incredibly it's not a hard-hitting launch lineup. It's not Halo, right? It's not the next generation of stuff, right? Like Mario Kart World is good. I'm not saying Mario Kart World isn't good. It's not my cup of tea for daily gaming. Matt is already devouring it. We're going to if if Twitch decides to behave, we'll play some later uh this evening on Twitch, but

I'm not really seeing it as like a compelling reason, right? the upgrade is not compelling right now to me. Um, mostly because that launch lineup is so spread out temporally and is so very very hey Nintendo. Here's the latest thing. You know what it's going to be. Don't you want it? Right? And the answer might be yes, but if the answer is no, then like what are you doing? Wait. Just wait. Just wait for it. Right? Like I I think that that's that's the big thing. And I'm not saying again again I want to be very clear. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying it launch wasn't spectacular. I'm not saying that it's not worth $500 if you're trying to buy a system from scratch. What I am saying is I don't understand the fervor to immediately like ditch the Switch one and get the Switch 2 just because it's out. I think part of it will is it's also been a while since we had a console launch. I think that's also true. Like

there hasn't been a new PlayStation or Xbox for a while. you know, we're squarely in the middle of that cycle. The Steam Deck has been out for a bit. Like, if you're like, "Cool, new gaming hardware to get excited about." Like, VR still isn't enough for most people. Like, VR is now selling better, but it's not the thing everybody gets excited about. So, like if you haven't bought There are some pe actually I would say there is pent-up demand, I think, at this point for it. And this is the outlet. Is part of it. how well the launch went is part of it the desired like I think especially during the pandemic a lot of us had the fondness had fond remembrances of midnight launches right that was a thing that was a cultural touchstone for a whole generation of gamers I went to the midnight launch for reach right for Halo Reach right not a game that many people remember really well I think it's probably the best game where you play as a Spartan and the second best Halo game overall uh cuz the best game great voice cast excellent voice cast the best Halo game, by the way, is ODST. I will fight.

That's what I was thinking of. I'm sorry. Instead of Yeah, ODST had the best voice cast. It's true. ODST was also just the best Halo game. I will fight people on this. Um, but like we haven't had a midline launch of this magnitude. We haven't had a big cultural like moment. Keep going, sir. Yeah. Yeah. In a while, right? Um, I think that there's there's a ton of um not demand for this, but demand for the experience that this offers and I think that that can't be underestimated in terms of why people are so about this, right? They want to be and again it is right now June 12th, 2025. If you're watching this later, there are a lot of people who could use a good distraction right now, and that is okay. That is an understandable thing. This happens to have been positioned quite correctly to be a fun, light-hearted, familyfriendly, highquality distraction,

right? Much in the same way that the original Switch took off heavily during the pandemic with the release of Animal Crossing. I can't say that there aren't other factors which are involved in helping make this such a success. They're by no means the primary driver for that success. But we would be remiss to not mention that there are lots of people looking for good distractions right now. And by Thunder is the switch to a good distraction. Right. That actually dubtales nicely into the thought I'd had. Um there's another difference between this launch and every other console launch. Yes, the streamer, excuse me, the streamer and e influencer ecosystem is now significantly more developed. I agree. Than any other console launch we've had. And I will say that even with the Steam Deck, because I don't think the Steam Deck is something that most people got excited about. And it's positioned poorly because by definition, it doesn't

fit well with the streamer ecosystem because it doesn't represent new games. It represents taking your games away from the thing you use to stream, right? Versus this which does offer new games, right? But like when was the actually the last Xbox and PlayStation were both five years ago, six? I don't even remember now. Uh PS5 was mid pandemic. Xbox was similar. Was it that recently? Uh the PS5 was November 12th, 2020. Yep. Okay. Okay. So that's not mid. Okay. 5 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, five, if you think of influencers and streamers, all of that together, what's happened in the past 5 years, I think part of their Nintendo's big thing here, all those, not all, a lot of those people need a new thing to talk about all the time. Just straight up. I think the amount of free press Nintendo got and free hype from this being a thing to

talk about that all of those people knew their audiences would be at least mildly to heavily interested in. I forgot about that. What? Uh the the Xbox Series X released on the 10th and the PlayStation 5 released on the 12th of November 2020. Oh, they almost always are neck and neck. forgot about how close those were to each other. Yeah. And like it's funny because I feel like everyone's forgotten that and people won't forget the Switch launch. Well, I mean f I don't know 5 years from now. We'll have to see. I still Well, okay. Difference. I still remember when Pokémon Go came out. Do you remember Peace in Our Time, chat? You remember Peace in Our Time? It was the week that Pokémon Go came out and all of your friends went out and wandered around the city and almost ran each other over chasing a Squirtle, right? Like great. I still remember like that first 6 months when even like I remember going

through malls and seeing groups of people doing these long circuits which was basically you'd walk the circuit long enough for all the Pokéstops to refresh. Yep. On what was it? A five minute refresh. 10 I think. Five or 10 whatever it was. Like Yeah. Like that was a actually hold on grass vortex you said it bet. Yeah. Why is this theory? There you was special. It was that summer was special, right? And I think this is this is part of that in addition to being again we're getting a lot of flash memory because this is again part of a um greater cultural and historical moment for better or worse. Right. Yeah. But yeah, like again just driving home the fact that this it's been 5 years since the console launch and you have a whole bunch of people. Yes. Whose job it is now is to be excited about the pop culture thing and sharing it with all the people that are interested in

hearing what they have to say. Like I will be really curious to see the next PlayStation Xbox launch around this. But also those aren't mainstream in the same way that a Switch is. I agree. Like it's funny. They may in a lot of cases sell more games and have more people playing on average per capita than a Switch does. Like higher penetration of percent playing. But for percent of people owning, my parents didn't care about the PlayStation or the Xbox. But when I asked my parents to help me get a Switch, they immediately said, "Hey, we're going to try and get one, too. if we can't, can you bring yours over for Father's Day so we can play Mario Kart together? That doesn't happen with all the consoles, right? It is a it is accessible enough and deeply embedded enough that I think it it is a unique phenomena. It's funny. I think for me, and this may sound weird,

I think it was the Wii that did it. I think it was the Wii with the silly motion controls that ended up being more successful than anybody ever thought they were going to be. but got families running around playing Wii Sports and swinging with Wii tennis and a couple of other things, playing together that helped cement in a lot of parents' minds who had never considered games being interesting before. It was suddenly a thing they could interact with with their kids in a fun and goofy way. And it helped cement it helped cement Nintendo in the middle of family gaming for digital. Yeah, I I very much agree. I think that and I think that Switch 2 is probably going to continue that. I think that this is right. You're going to you are going to have moments where you uh re-engage sibling rivalries over things like Mario Kart. That's just going to happen. And that's like part of the expected experience, right? I I was uh I was telling um uh chat on Monday when we

were talking about it that Mario Kart is still Mario Kart time from launch until someone was swearing and screaming about how cheating it was. that so and so got a blue shell is like 10 minutes. It's like right there, right? It is still the experience I think that people are looking for fondly, even if it does ruin friendships. Um, actually, and the important thing which they captured. Will, can you do a Did you still have your Switch there? Let's pretend you and I are in the same room for a moment. Pick that up. Hey, Will, I want to play Mario. Yep. Mario Kart with you. You could hand me a controller, right? You can split the controllers on the console immediately and generate here you go. Like that right there I think is one of the single biggest underrated selling points of why the Switch one and two and the Wii before that and and the Wii U were brilliant is that when you go buy an Xbox, you have to go pick up a

second controller. A lot of people don't have one. These come with one. It had the family games. We were just like, "Oh, here. Play with me." The thing I was using, hold on. Click controller. Like, that's faking brilliant. I I agree. So, yeah. Overall, Switch launch A+ device. Hardware, I would give it a solid A. Launch lineup B minus. Actually, launch lineup depends who you are. Yeah. Yeah. I think if I would say Yeah. Yeah. It depends on who you are. For me, B minus. For for other people, it might be higher. For other people, it might be much lower. If you don't like Mario Kart, if you're if you're big into Zelda and not Mario and you don't think that it's worth it for the upgrade. Now, by the way, I should I should clarify. I did try the Breath of the Wild upgrade. Mhm. It's significant. Those upgrades are like you get them for free if you get the Nintendo Switch Online Plus expansion pass subscription, which is like 40 bucks a year. Um, and

you get two $10 upgrades with it. So, it's like 20 bucks for a year. It's not bad. Um, it does do justice to those games. It It's a really significant upgrade. Um, I went to Cororo Forest and there was no frame tearing or no anything. Um, everything was smooth. The whole game was fluid. It was very nice. So, you know, that might be it for you. But if if you're not feeling like there's a killer app for you, I think it's a wait, right? There will be one eventually if you like Nintendo franchises, but I don't think it's there yet for everyone. Yeah. But again, it's it's an interesting cultural thing happening right now. I also agree with that highly. I think the cultural moment is very significant and I think that that's a thing that uh we'll be looking at for a while actually. I think people will continue to participate in the I got to switch to check this out and everyone will be happy for them for a good long while. Um because it's funny. I'm actually traveling this coming like Saturday for a little while. Going to meet up with my sister's family and I have a niece and nephew there who are

both teen and tween. I'm going to be curious to see if they show up with a switch too. Yeah. Like I I know they have a switch. I'm curious to see if that like bumped up to the level where they're like, "Hey, mom and dad, can we get this?" Yeah. Because I don't know. Yeah. YouTube comments, sound off below. Did you get a Switch 2? Do you feel like it was worth it? What's your favorite game so far? Do you feel like it's all been overblown? Um, let let us know in the comments below. Uh, there will be no design club next week. As Jeff just mentioned, he's traveling, but we will have one the week after. Also of note, a small programming note. Uh over on Twitch on Monday evening at 800 PM, Matt and I are interviewing people about a thing. And I'm phrasing it like that very specifically because we're not telling you yet. We'll tell you. Is it going to also be co-road to here? I

don't think so. Oh, I thought it was. Okay, we'll find out. We'll work that out. It might be broadcast to YouTube, but it'll definitely be over on Twitch. Um, and whatever uh Twitch chat tells you it's definitely not Hatsune Miku. Um, that they they seem to believe for some reason it's Hatsune Miku. I promise it's not. Uh, so thank you all so very much for joining us for our discussion on the Switch 2 launch. I, as always, have been your humble host, Will. That's Jeff. Say bye to the people, Jeff. Bye to the people, Jeff. [Music] And we back. Club. Cool. I thought that I thought that logo intro and outro. Mhm. Yeah. Oh, I think the intro and outro were great. I think the uh the episode went really well. Thanks, chat. I thought you all had um a lot of really good points on that. I saw a lot of people talking about the cost of the games. Um, that's a thing that I didn't

really want to get into here largely because we don't have a huge sample size and because we talked about it recently, I I think and also the top selling game, it's impossible to judge what the actual price point is because for many people it will be $50 and for some small select people it'll be $80, but for most people it's $50, right? So, there's a lot of confounding factors. I think we'll have a better idea of where people stand on prices when we see sales numbers for more Nintendo games in a couple of months. Um, but I did want to acknowledge that I saw those. I just didn't think it was a great part to like put that in the um in the conversation. Yeah, because it's just it's still too new. It it is still too new. Um, is there anything else, Jeff? I think Matt and I Matt and I may go try and do see if if Twitch is alive again to do a Mario Kart stream. Um, which you So, if you want to do a thing for 15 or 20 minutes, I know a thing we could do. We

could also do that when I come back another time. We should do that another time cuz a I don't have it set up and b I need to go see if Twitch is working enough to do this with Mac. That sounds quite reasonable for both of those then. Yeah. Uh Janet, thank you so much for being so cool and for hanging out and being here while we uh did a Twitchless design club uh and for helping me test all of the stuff. I broke a lot of things. I'm going to have to fix all of them when I go to stream over on Twitch tomorrow. Uh tomorrow begins my Final F tomorrow continues my Final Fantasy 6 playthrough. I'm in uh the the the Shattered World and I have uh at least three dungeons I know of before I go take on a clown. Um so please join us for that tomorrow. Uh until then everybody uh yes uh in case you missed it um we mentioned it earlier someone mentioned that uh stuff has has been down uh today. Um Cloudfire is having a very bad day which means the internet is having a very bad day. So if there are outages it's not you it's not it's the internet. The internet's having a bad time today. Um so do do you know keep a

weather eye out for yourselves and um so yeah. Cool. Great. Thank you all so much. We'll see you all next time. Uh, bye everybody. Two weeks from now here, unless possibly there's a Monday one, which we'll see. Yeah, maybe. But there'll be breakfast on Monday anyway. Breakfast on Monday. Design club, not next week. It'll be great. Cool. Great. Bye.