For as long as I could remember, I was a Nintendo kid. I mean, literally, as long as I can remember. We got our Wii when I was 3. I’d play Mario Kart Wii before school, later in life I'd come home to play Breath of the Wild after baseball practice (on the Wii U version, if you can believe it). When the Switch reveal trailer came out in 2017, I was extremely excited for a console I wouldn't own myself for another four years. A console that was both a home console as well as portable seemed so novel, and the first party games they got that initial year were exceptional. When I bought my Switch, I was more than happy with it.
It's to the point where people in my life think I have some kind of aversion to mature media, when it was more that video games were expensive and I just… liked Nintendo games. Third party ports typically ran worse or were overall worse versions even if they were put on Nintendo hardware so I didn't bother. I didn't live in a household that had multiple consoles because frankly it was wasteful. One was enough.
Sure, I had my grievances. Games never went on sale and the reason my parents never bought me one as a child was because Nintendo in their typical consumer unfriendly fashion way understocked Switches to artificially boost demand. Their “JoyCon” controllers which are basically mandatory to own are extremely prone to breaking and all of their first party controllers are exorbitantly expensive (although this is becoming true of all controllers, my super nice Xbox controller I bought at $100 is now $150 for the exact same product months later).
I was reasonably convinced that I wanted to buy a gaming computer after college due to the outdatedness and general deterioration of my Switch., but there was one thing holding me back from fully committing. The illusive concept of the upcoming “Switch 2”. After all, their primary allure as a brand is their first party exclusives. You won’t find the very high quality Nintendo produced games anywhere else but Nintendo, which is especially appealing for someone who’s entire history of playing video games has a lot to do with those unique IPs.
So… I waited to watch their reveal presentation. The first half went pretty great! I was excited! The system is shockingly powerful for a handheld system, the controllers looked more comfortable to hold as well as more durable, the launch games didn’t seem great but that wasn’t the main allure anyway necessarily because I could play all my old games on this new system with this much better hardware, right?
And then they revealed a little something called an “upgrade pack” where if you want to play your Switch 1 games on the upgraded Switch 2 hardware, you’d have to pay $10-$20 per game that you already own…
Excuse my French, do you know how fucking insane that is? On hardware that you already physically own, Nintendo is trying to say “Nah, you can’t use this to its full potential until you give us more money”. I cannot play my $60 game I bought 4 years ago (that in some cases are 7-8 year old releases) at higher resolutions or with a better frame rate unless I pay more money for no reason other than greed? Ridiculous.
Then the bombshell, the classic bombshell. A report comes out soon after the presentation that Nintendo was planning on charging $70 for basically all of their first party digital releases, and $80 for their physical ones. Which… the physical ones aren’t actually physical, they’re a cart containing a key to what is essentially a digital copy. IF YOU BUY A PHYSICAL CARTRIDGE, YOU DO NOT OWN THE GAME. That is the sole consumer friendly benefit that console games had over the PC market completely evaporated and for more money. Of course, Nintendo didn’t cover any of this in their presentation.
Never in my life will I pay $80 for Mario Kart. Okay, that’s a lie, I bought the DLC for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which totaled $85, but with that game you get 96 courses when your standard Mario Kart has 32 if not 16. It’s now $80 for REGULAR Mario Kart, not any updated/upgraded version. I am not paying $80 for Mario Kart. I’m not paying $70-80 for video games.
It doesn’t matter that I “can” afford it, it has everything to do with the law of demand. As things get more expensive, less people find them worth it. I have been priced out relative to my desire and more importantly, the opportunity cost of what else I can do with that money liiiike… buying a computer.
There’s two appeals consoles have relative to using a gaming computer. One, ease of use. You plug the console into the TV, you turn the console and the TV on and you play your game. There’s a ubiquitous understanding of what a “Playstation” or an “Xbox” is, you can go to the store and buy games in a case if you want to give someone (particularly a child) a game. PCs aren’t hard to set up by any means if you buy prebuilt like I did, but there’s certainly more troubleshooting involved to get games to run how you want. There’s toggleable display settings and framerate limits and “Why is my screen tearing this is a game from 2009” and going on Google to see who else has had your question. Unless someone is also intimately in the know with gaming on a computer, you can’t explain to grandma how the platform Steam works to “gift” a game.
The second appeal of consoles over a gaming computer is the lower cost of entry for comparable levels of processing power. My PC’s power is relatively comparable to a Playstation 5, maybe a little better than it (due to the customization/personalization potential). My computer cost $1100, a Playstation 5 costs $500. A computer can do more than play games, it’s a computer, but a gaming console can max everything out for games and take advantage of huge economies of scale that someone buying/building a computer simply doesn’t have.
The first appeal will always exist. Consoles are for the public, computers are for the enthusiast. Here’s the goofy thing though… with the direction the industry is headed in, having a computer is not only more friendly to the consumer, it’s also cheaper in the long run.
Let’s compare some costs here. If I want to repair my PC, I can diagnose and repair a component individually. It’s my system. If anything goes wrong, I can buy a specific part. For a console, if your warranty is out (which is a warranty you pay extra money for the begin with), you’re toast, especially as they’ve made consoles extremely unfriendly to third party repair. If I want to upgrade my system, I can upgrade an individual part (typically the GPU). If you want to upgrade from your console, you have to buy the entire new console and now with this recent change by Nintendo, have to pay money to play games you already own on your new console.
Every console has paid online membership subscription. On a computer, your already existing internet access is your membership to play games online. Controllers? You can use whatever controller you want on PC. Basically anything you can plug into a USB port you can use as your controller if you want, however inexpensive or nice you want that to be (as well as your already existing mouse and keyboard).
There’s a third appeal to consoles over PC I didn’t mention before: first party exclusives. Games that you can only find on a given console and nowhere else. Besides Nintendo, this has… all but evaporated in the modern day. PC has by far the largest library of games with the only downside being that ports to PC over console generally come a year or so later. Terrible if you’re impatient, which it’s a great thing I’m not! I can easily compare the experience of using my PC to a Playstation 5 since the Playstation infamously has only 8 or so games exclusive to the platform that the PC cannot play (and a great many the other way around) in the five years since its release1.
PC has what consoles don’t have: Steam. I mentioned it earlier, it’s the most popular video game marketplace/launcher on computer and rightfully so. It’s one of the few companies I have any modicum of respect for in regards to dedication to the consumer experience. Along with the myriad of other positives, Steam has one major benefit over any console’s marketplace: games are significantly cheaper.
Let’s run a little math here. I’m going to make a comparison between the two. I’m not going to compare costs of a specific monitor or TV because that’s a personal decision.
Switch 2:
Console + Mario Kart World bundle $500
Switch 2 Pro Controller $85
In my opinion for the Switch this is a mandatory purchase for me even if technically unnecessary
If I wanted to buy another set of JoyCon controllers, which I would likely do, it would be an additional $95
Switch 2 Online Membership $20/year (on top of existing Internet bill)
Total: $605 (assuming one year)
My PC:
PC + Keyboard and Mouse $1100
Xbox Elite Series 2 $100 (this now costs $150 but I got it at $100 so whatever, suck it)
This is specifically me buying myself a super nice controller and wanting to keep a fair comparison to me buying a Switch 2 controller if I was to buy one. Keyboard and mouse is an incredibly standardized (and in some cases superior) control set for using a PC
Online: FREE (on top of existing Internet bill)
Total: $1200
PC costs absolutely vary, if you’re smart and a total nerd you could probably end up getting the parts and building a PC comparable to mine in power for like $700, but even that’s an estimate because I simply do not know enough. If you want my specs, they’re in this footnote2.
$600 is a lot of money to make up. This is where games becoming $70-80 becomes a big deal, especially for Nintendo games which NEVER go on sale. This is in comparison to Steam which constantly has massive sales.
These are all games I bought for my PC through various sales on Steam. Their cost totals $216.53.
To their credit, many of these games are “older”, but are also games that have so far taken too many computing resources to be put on the less powerful Nintendo systems. If they were released on the Switch 2, they would likely be released for $60-$70 all the same. Omitting a few of those games for fairness3, buying the other 13 games would have been $780-$910 if they were even available on the Switch 2 to begin with.
If you’re in the know, there’s some flaws in this exact example of mine. I’m taking some logical leaps in order to make my argument brief for a general audience. My point is this: if I want to play Elden Ring, on PC I can wait a couple months for a seasonal sale and buy it for $35.99 (with potential for that figure to go even lower as time progresses). If I wanted it on Switch 2, it will ALWAYS be $70-80. That adds up. It would also run worse on the Switch 2 than on my computer. I’m paying half the money for a better version of the same game. Repeat that process for many games over the course of any years and that surplus adds up.
Sure, I wouldn’t have access to those $70-80 (probably high-quality) Nintendo exclusives but frankly… there’s SO many video games out there I don’t need them! They are directly competing with hundreds if not thousands of other high quality releases and experiences. I played Grand Theft Auto 5 and even for a game that’s 12 years old it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. There’s this game called Unbeatable I’ve been waiting for since I was in highschool, it’s on PC and not Switch 2 (it’ll also probably be like… $30 even on release let alone if it ever got a sale). That applies to a lot of indie releases that tend to be cheaper (and have more creative throughput than big AAA titles today) because launching on PC is easier than any other platform.
All of this on top of it being a full fledged computer. I’m someone who uses a computer a lot for things such as typing this very post. I can use my PC to watch YouTube, to message/call friends, to send emails, to surf the web and research my various curiosities, all of the capabilities we use computers for. Consoles can do some of these functions but they’re typically worse at them if they can do them at all. Anyone who’s ever had to type something into the YouTube search bar on a remote or a controller can attest to this, it’s so much worse. Buying a PC is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made for myself.
With likely incoming tariffs, the average consumer’s wallet is only going to get tighter and tighter especially in respects to tech products which are primarily produced in countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and China. Corporate greed is squeezing out most of our disposable income, mindless consumption is not sustainable. I’m lucky to have had the money to buy my computer at all to begin with. We are accustomed to a grand many luxuries many around the world do not have that over time less within our own nation have access to.
I’m frustrated… and I’m sad. Those are the core emotions of this post. As I’ve already gone over, I grew up with Nintendo games. A lot of the time I spent with my friends as a kid all the way until now was playing Nintendo games with them. They’re the only company really keeping the spirit of playing games with friends and family on the couch together alive. Even when my parents decided as a teen we were no longer a “Nintendo household” due to their consumer unfriendly practices, I still stuck with them. I was one of the many people buying a used 2DS for $100 on eBay during the pandemic as a way to pass the time. I bought a Switch with my own money my freshman year of college. I’m pretty much a part of Nintendo’s core demographic, the group of people they cultivate to have reasons to stay loyal to them despite their issues.
For them to have gone far enough to have made me completely abandon ship without even a twinge of remorse or regret… It rubs me the wrong way. I spent four years studying the theory of consumer behavior and I’m going to spend even more doing the same once I go to grad school. I know how this works, I know the exact reasons why I’m doing what I’m doing. That doesn’t mean I’m happy about having to continuously play this tap dance within my life not to get ripped off for the money I’ve earned. Sure, I enjoy the process of maximizing my value and personal happiness, but plenty of times it doesn’t necessarily feel on my terms and more like I got slapped across the face and am walking away from a friend I once loved.
Life is full of these moments. It doesn’t mean lamenting them is useless. It’s how we process them properly to truly move past them. You can call me a cornball for it, I don’t give a fuck! It’s “just video games” but it’s also how I spend some of my limited time on this planet and is something I put at least some amount of consideration into. It’s a medium through which I am confronted with ideas and experiences that have made me reconsider my position of various things and my worldview. It’s a medium through which I’m sometimes inspired in ways that influences my writing or even the way I live my life which then influences my writing. Not all the time, sometimes it is “just because it’s fun”, and that’s all the reason it needs too. We need leisure as much as we need accomplishment.
So, sorry Mario. You were a good friend, but it’s time for me to go. Y’all can enjoy your overpriced racing game if you want, it’s your life and not mine.
If you wanna get technical with it, PC can access and play these games via emulation and piracy, but I’m not counting that because I’m assuming the typical, law abiding consumer. It is a capability unique to PC, however.
Ryzen 7 5000 Series CPU
16GB RAM
1TB Storage
RTX 4060 GPU
Probably other shit that I could include but again, I don’t know enough about PCs to know what’s important to list. This is what I figured was most important out of the available specifications. The heat sink and cooling system are pretty legit too, I haven’t seen it ever go above 60° C.
Abzu, Left for Dead 2, Solar Ash, Rayman Origins, Persona 4 Golden. They’re either indie releases that tend to be cheaper or way older than a game that would reasonably be full price on a Nintendo console if they were there.
The cost of the 13 games not omitted is $194.56. The difference between that and even a $60 standardized price point let alone $70 is nearly $600 on its own. It’s absolutely possible and reasonable some of the games I included would be more like $40 on Switch 2 if released there though, although I’d still wager MOST of my inclusions would be at least $60 if not all the way up to $80.
this is a beautiful peace, very informative, thank you for writing. as a person who bought a wii for my office, even after their consoles are long and gone from they public eye, they are expensive🫡
baller