Best switch console is still the steam deck I’m sure :3
Either that, or the powerful gaming PC you put the Switch 2 money towards that will eventually emulate the Switch 2. Seems like a better investment than buying a locked down console with a GPU less powerful than a RTX 3050 that can only play $80 games.
Given the switch2 is going to cost more, definitely.
Also games are going to be $80 apparently :(
Legion Go (Debian) for me :)
How good is it? Does everything work like on the deck?
Yea, except:
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KDE’s built in screen keyboard is broken (Using Steam’s keyboard). GNOME keyboard does work fine.
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Autologin is on and screen locking is off due to a broken keyboard.
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Manual installation if hhd, steam, flatpak, lutris may required a physical keyboard for first setup.
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KDE wallet is on to protect (non-file) data. (Wifi passwords, chrome/Firefox login, etc…)
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JamesDSP is used as pulse/easyEffects may need a reset as the audio may “break” when resuming from suspend.
I didn’t want a non-vanilla Debian system (Bazzite), so I chose to manually install Debian and have a nice Debian setup. Besides those issues, everything works pretty good (no crashes, hiccups.)
Are you interested in Debian on a legion Go?
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Can the launch model be rooted?
Do you think Nintendo would announce that?
Switch 2: Now with more exploits!
…
I’d suggest finding out and being an early adopter.
I don’t plan to buy one because proprietary, locked down hardware isn’t a great investment compared to PC hardware that can serve a lot of different purposes, but am eagerly awaiting the news of Nintendo’s well-earned pwnage.
Only time will tell.
No way in hell Nintendo would come out and talk about exploits in their game console. Also if they knew about it they’d fix it first.
Unlikely, but you never know.
Isn’t that generally the case, though? Sure, not rootable on day zero, but usually it is only later models that get some hardware patch, leaving the earliest models with the vulnerability.
Nobody knows yet.
the size of the framebuffer has nothing to do with how much power the device has to fill it up.
Even the crappiest integrated gpu is “4k” capable
High refresh screen and 4K support is a surprise to me, that’s very nice when it comes to Nintendo standards.
On the other hand, It’s very weird that they didn’t announce a price at the showcase… It sounds like this might be more expensive than what everybody’s expecting it to be.
I would have bet real money if you had asked me yesterday that it would have been limited to 1080p to reduce cost. I am very curious to know more about how it actually performs in each setting, how much of it is upscaling, etc. I imagine that most 4k games won’t have much in the way of better graphics than the Switch 1, the higher memory bandwidth could help with higher res textures though.
There’s not going to be a single worthwhile game that will run natively at 4k. And i have my doubts about 1080@120 too. Maybe they can keep their polygons so low they can actually reach it, but then what’s the point?
There’s a price on the UK official store: £395.99 for the system. £429.99 including digital copy of MKW.
Preorders open on 8th April.
Nothing yet on the US store. Tariffs threw a wrench in their plans, I reckon.
$449, $499 with Mario Kart digital.
I just saw this getting reported. Oof. That’s not a great price.
It’s both not unexpected and actually pretty reasonable, considering how similar hardware on PC handhelds stacks up.
I’m more upset at the nickel-and-diming of resolution and performance upgrades for Switch 1 games, to be honest.
It’s not similar to PC hardware; It uses a Tegra processor like the Switch 1. Which means it’s more like a phone with a less than laptop grade Nvidia graphics chipset thrown in. Unlike the Steam Deck, for instance, which uses an AMD Z processor, a scaled down version of what is in the Xbox and PS5.
That is entirely meaningless. That’s not how performance works, it has no bearing on anything.
In practice, they showed a whole bunch of footage of comparable games, including Elden Ring, Cyberpunk. Hitman, Star Wars Outcasts and Split Fiction. At a glance, it seems fairly comparable to the current batch of PC handheld APUs and seems to be mostly running cross-gen PC games at lower resolutions and framerates but pretty solidly otherwise.
That puts it in a weaker spot than next-gen PC handhelds, but on par with most of the current batch. Or at least as on par as the Steam Deck is.
So in terms of pricing for the hardware it seems pretty consistent with what we’re seeing elsewhere. The two Deck models seem to have the most comparable specs, and those are slightly cheaper for the LCD and slightly more expensive for the OLED. Other handhelds are marginally more powerful but also way more expensive. With the upcoing batch of high-end AMD APUs being also way more expensive than last gen, it seems the Switch 2 is price-competitive, at least until Valve decides it’s time and tries to make another custom deal with AMD for a more powerful APU at scale.
The original rumor was true. Way, way too high for me to even consider it, will be getting a Steam Deck.
The Steam Deck is… not significantly cheaper?
I mean, go nuts. It will have cheaper games, a lot of the same cross-platform stuff and it trades blows on performance and display, from what I can see… but price isn’t really the biggest difference here.
The Steam Deck is significantly cheaper when you take 🏴☠️ into account. Having cheaper hardware made having to deal with Nintendo’s walled garden worth it in the past. Plus the fact that there wasn’t anything else like the Switch when it launched.
The price reductions on the nintendo eshop aren’t really that enticing in comparison. So you have to pay pretty high prices for games or have to search on the second hand market to buy games cheaper.
On Steam, Gog and Epic you get good deals every day. Those crazy 1000+ game collections from Steam users aren’t there without reason. Games are often so cheap on Steam that you buy them even when you have 10 other games in the backlog you would rather play before.
Preorders open on 8th April.
The US site lists May 8. Preorders also seem to be invite-only in the beginning?
From the US site:
Invitation emails will be prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis to registrants who have purchased a Nintendo Switch Online membership with a minimum of 12 months of paid membership and a minimum of 50 total gameplay hours, as of April 2, 2025. Once invitation emails have been sent to all registrants meeting the priority criteria, invitations will be sent to remaining eligible registrants on a first-come, first-served basis.
The German site lists April 8, but requires you two have a Nintendo online subscription for the last two years.
No OLED, no sale.
This is bothering me too… But there is a huge perk of being an early adopter though… 🏴☠️
Yeah that’s driving me crazy too, it’s 2025 and it’s an obvious marketing gimmick to withhold the OLED at this point
Well, they can’t release an OLED model later on (and make more sales) if they make it OLED from the start! Duh!
I think I might buy a steamdeck instead and just hope that the fromsoft game is a temporary exclusive
A temporary exclusive, just like Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne…
I have a steam deck, and I just hope yuzu or ryujinx will be able to run Duskbloods :P
Definitely getting a Steam Deck instead. I was waiting for confirmation of the ridiculously high price.
“$450 is an insanely high price for a new console, so I’m going to buy a $400 2 year old console instead.”
It’s a 60Hz vs 120Hz screen, and it’s got true 1080p resolution. It’s certainly on-par with the Steam Deck in terms of performance and performance per dollar. The price isn’t ridiculous by any stretch.
“$450 is an insanely high price for a new console, so I’m going to buy a $400 2 year old console instead.”
Sure. But it’s also a choice between a library that will forever cost $70 00-$90.00 per game, and a game library infamous for game sales so good that an average player cannot finish their library because the seasonal sales are too good to pass up.
The price isn’t ridiculous by any stretch
The thing for me is: The Switch is only a closed-down console. You can only buy games through the nintendo store. The Steam Deck is open. I can play my older games, even physical games via external optical drive, on my Steam Deck.
A $400 2 year old console that I can sideload games onto, yes. Nintendo’s strength has been “weaker hardware, cheaper price” since the Wii. Now they want to price themselves alongside Sony and Microsoft? No thanks.
Yes but consider this: Fuck Nintendo.
For $50 less, you get a similarly capable machine in terms of specs but more comfortable to hold, with an immensely larger library, and an operating system far more respectful of your authority to do what you want with the machine you bought.
I don’t think we know the specs yet, it might be way more powerful than the Steam Deck. I agree though that the Steam Deck is a better value considering the amount of games and their prices.
And you can play online for free.
Most importantly for someone with limited funds like me, you can sideload games onto it.
I’d encourage you to utilize those limited funds legally by buying games on deep discounts, if you were implying piracy, but even legitimately, being able to sideload all the old PC games you have is a massive plus. GOG and Epic give away great games for free on the regular, and an Amazon Prime subscription has recently been filled with some bangers that you get to keep via both of them.
The Steam Deck is getting long in the tooth. New triple A games don’t run very well on it or aren’t even playable. It’s fine if you wan tot run older games or indie games, but otherwise you might have to look for one of the competitors.
I mean, I’ve been using a Switch to play games portably so far. A Steam Deck will be a revelation by comparison.
For sure. It’s a great machine. I have one. But I’m trying to keep expectations down. Some people might be surprised to know that it isn’t a latest gen machine. Some people might have too high expectations because of all the rave it gets.
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I think I would wait for a Steam Deck 2 just for the sake of future proof.
Steam Deck 2 isn’t coming for a long time. Steam Deck OLED is still more than viable.
Yeah. No way valve launches SD2 with Switch 2 and the upcoming xbox handheld. It will at least take another 2, maybe 3 years
and I gotta be honest I kinda wanna play rimworld, emulated stuff and stardew valley mainly. I just rlly like the idea of it being run on linux and me owning the fucking games forever.
Well, “owning,” if they’re bought through Steam.
Does the Steam Deck have GOG support?
You don’t own your games on GOG. Please stop spreading this easily disproven lie. GOG, like all digital storefronts, only sells revocable licenses.
You can download and keep the installers forever in your personal storage somewhere, and install them without the need of Internet connection.
When you buy a game from GOG you’re buying without DRM and have all the installers available to download as backups. Regardless of what the fine print may say, this is effectively owning your games forever.
You can download it through dicvover in Desktop Mode.
You can sideload a program called Heroic Games Launcher that lets you easily manage your GOG games, as well as Amazon and Epic.
Yup. Install either Heroic or Lutris (though Heroic is a little better). I think there’s also a plugin to allow you to access Heroic through the Steam frintend, but in Desktop Mode, when installing a game through Heroic, it’ll add it to your Steam library, which means you can access it in Game Mode too.
They e also flat out said it will be a long time before they even consider a 2nd version. Performance efficiency and battery tech need to make some leaps to make it practical.
tbh the fact the fromsoft game seems to be mostly focused on multiplayer makes me not too hyped
and yeah, a steamdeck is a solid investment
Something I’ve seen far less reaction to than I expected? While the Switch 2 looks like it takes standard MicroSD cards, it DOESN’T. It takes the fairly obscure MicroSD Express standard! I can’t even BUY an SD Express card locally right now! It seems likely, at launch, that Nintendo’s branded cards will be the only ones people can get that will work with it!
The Switch 2 has 256GB of onboard storage, much more than the Switch, it is true. But it’s also backwards compatible with the Switch, and lets users bring their old digital library over with them. I have a 256GB card in my Switch, it’s nearly full, and it doesn’t have my whole library on it! If I got a Switch 2, I’d have it filled up on day 1!
And the MicroSD card issue won’t be obvious to most buyers. Parents will get their kids Switch 2s, and wonder why their old card won’t work with it. It’ll look to them like the Switch 2 or the card is broken, unless they implement a physical lock against incompatible cards, and I don’t know if SD cards even support those. Also, SD Express cards are more expensive than standard ones.
This could end up being a debacle almost on the scale of the price (which, as others have noted, isn’t even Nintendo’s fault entirely).
Brought to you by the losers of the lawsuits… Losers like you and me.
120 and 4K are often claimed on console specs but are rarely achieved within games. At best it will be capable of that when playing Netflix or streaming.
Or it’s actually running at 720p30 and being FSR/framegenned into a blurry shimmery mess. There’s no way Nintendo managed to cram a chip powerful enough to render its own Switch 1 games at true 4k120 into a tablet.
Nah the direct didn’t claim 4k at 120.
You get 1080p at 120, or 4k at 60.
Or it’s actually running at 720p30 and being FSR/framegenned into a blurry shimmery mess. There’s no way Nintendo managed to cram a chip powerful enough to render its own Switch 1 games at true 1080p120 into a tablet.
Fixed.
The problem isn’t getting enough computing power into the tablet, the problem is cooling and battery power.
The real advantage of a 120 Hz screen is that you get a much more graceful degradation if you dip below your fps target for a bit. If you’re targeting 30 fps but drop to 25, it still feels pretty smooth on a high-refresh screen, whereas that’s appallingly clunky on a low-refresh one. A “poor man’s gsync”, if you will.
To the gsync comment, the Switch 2’s screen also has VRR
This is what a lot of people don’t understand. Higher refresh rate even with lower fps makes games feel more responsive. I can play 30 fps games much better on a refresh rate higher than 60hz.
They announced Metroid Prime 4 will be able to run at 1080p 120fps or 4K 60fps when docked. It doesn’t have the most impressive graphics or anything, but it sounds like they’re actually going to try doing it for a few games.
Nintendo will try but based off of some of the third party gameplay they seem to be the only ones who will
I’d bet that’s using a lot of upscaling in both modes
Switch 1 games can support dynamic resolution, it’s probably going to be used for higher end games on Switch 2 as well.
Yes, for all but the simplest games it will be one or the other, not both at once. That’s how it tends to work even on the flagship XB/PS systems.
But how does Stardew Valley run?
If you don’t have autorun on you just hold the stick all the way in one direction.
After a week with Nintendo controllers you don’t even have to hold it anymore.
Zing!
There was fine print at one point during the stream that specified that 4K will be limited to 60 FPS.
Well spotted!
I missed that while i was reading the supported resolutions on the screen.
4k? My 3070 can’t even get close to 60fps 4k on most games
And yet switch 2 can on 10 year old phone hardware.
Gotta just be for video playback not games right??
Or maybe 30fps max?
Or it’s rendered at 1080 and upscaled…
Probably this. TV does this all the time. There is not much actually filmed in UHD/12G, except maybe Premier League, F1 and other major sporting events.
It’s 4k compatible, probably not 4K native. Maybe zome games like Zelda will use Nvidia upscalling.
the games will still run at 1080p, or 720p but be upscaled to 4k using dlss, xess, or fsr
Man I’ve just forgotten about Nintendo at this point. Microsoft and Sony get that exclusives aren’t working when people don’t have enough money to buy every system anymore. I see Nintendo as a niche console with a handful of games. There’s just not enough to justify buying one, and I grew up on Zelda and Metroid. I love them, but it’s not worth buying another console for a few high priced games with questionable performance.
What exactly do you consider high priced? $60 for a game that you end up playing for 10 hours is only $6 an hour. Compared to the price of a movie ticket, that’s pretty cheap entertainment.
As far as games go, it’s still a lot. I’ve played some $20 games for hundreds of hours. Not a dealbreaker, and I’ll gladly buy the game if it looks fun. On the other hand, the games generally being expensive is not a selling point for the console.
You can try to rationalize it all you want, bottom line is people don’t have money to buy $80 games these days. Those pros aren’t going to the movies either.
I bought a rug that I’ve gotten years of value out of, should it have been thousands of dollars then? The idea that time used is how you measure value is flawed.
I mean, yeah, I never said it was a perfect basis for measuring the value of games or anything else in the world. It’s just one metric, and by that measure it’s a pretty good value for time of enjoyment. Congrats on the rug bro.
The Switch has sold more than the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S combined. Very “niche”
Cool. And Sony can sell to PS and PC, same with Xbox. They have two markets, one that they don’t have to support with hardware. They can also make games that look nice and run nice because they have much better hardware. Plus they actually do cross play with each other, making bigger player pools for match making and such.
But sure, Mario Party is fun every so often.
Best selling PS5 game: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 @ 11 million
9th best selling Switch game: Super Mario Party @ 21.1 million
Super Mario Party Jamboree released in October and already sold over 6 million.
But sure, I guess Nintendo is the niche one
Cool and how many games are there on the system? With no backwards compatibility for these expensive games? How many shooters are popular on switch? Or is it that they lock down their IP and it’s marketed strongly towards children and cashing in on nostalgia.
But sure, nuance doesn’t matter. Nintendo is clearly the best system with the best games. I wonder how gaming PCs are even selling anymore, no one even should be playing on anything else it’s so obviously good. Jesus…
Man, those suits really scream fun don’t they?
90€ for Mario Kart 🤡 I hope this console flops because of this alone.
You know it will not… The best I hope is that MK doesn’t sell too well separately thus forcing a discount.
Depends on the customer really, we do not live in times where everyone can buy food or even think about raising another family member. Mind the release sales of the switch 1 were pre covid.
This might flop due to 2-class conflict, although Id love to see the switch 2 to succeed
The reporting I’m seeing puts it at 40 if you buy the console bundle. Which… I mean, why wouldn’t you?
I’m not sure what the deal is with the physical version, I have to assume it’s some collector’s edition deal with an Amiibo or something. Can’t imagine they straight up double the price if you want to buy the card in a box instead of bundled with the console. Waiting on official prices for all of it, in any case.
This is the price for the game on the official Nintendo store. DK is priced at 70€ digital and 80€ physical, it’s not just a Mario Kart thing.
Got a link? My official Nintendo site hadn’t updated with Switch 2 info when I checked. Do they detail the contents of the physical versions?
Here’s the link to the French store: https://store.nintendo.fr/fr/nintendo-switch-2 all regional stores have similar prices in their own currencies. No details on what’s inside the box.
Got it, thanks. Yeah, it seems it’s a 10 euro extra for physical. I get why, those Switch carts were expensive, and it seems like they’ve moved to even more expensive, faster storage, but it REALLY sucks. Puts the “virtual card” stuff they announced in perspective.
It just seems crazier for MK specifically because… well, it’s forty bucks with the bundle, and the bundle is digital-only. Makes physical 2x the cost, which is nuts.
They’re really milking this launch on a number of avenues I’m not cool with, and I’m not sure the offering justifies it. Some of those current-gen ports looked rough.
The 10 FPS screenshare feature didn’t entice you? And like cmon, gamechat. Nothing else has gamechat. And you will never even have to use a mouse ever again cuz u can just take your joycon to work and scratch it over the desk.
Don’t quote me, but I think they will ship a plastic guard to use for the mouse, just like the Lenovo Legion Go does. Don’t knock it til you try it, it does work.
For the record, it’s weird to see Nintendo stumble upon the incredible concepts of Kinect and Discord in the year of our lord 2025. But hey, every Nintendo console needs a gimmick you can proceed to ignore, and this one will at least be useful to… somebody? At least it’s a gesture that online games aren’t an afterthought anymore.
What I’m not sure about at all is the pricing model for games and backwards compatibility as it is. And while the hardware is perfectly acceptable for a modern handheld and very comparable to the current batch of PC handhelds it’s the target for the next decade, presumably, so it’s at best as outdated as the original Switch was while not being the only game in town to play some of those HD ports.
I don’t think it’s an underwhelming propostion at this point, and you can’t deny the first party software on display. I don’t think it’s nearly as exciting as the first Switch. We’ll see how it does with mainstream audiences, I suppose.
But you know that’s not gonna be the only $80 game. The next Zelda and 3D Mario are guaranteed to be $80, too, because they know people will pay it. Just like TotK’s $70 price point.
I hope at the very least it forces them to drop it’s price
Looks like $629.99. Never sure if it’s CAD or USD but my Nintendo account is Canadian.
You’re looking at the en-ca page. You’re in Canada. It’s CAD.
How do you not know which country you’re in?
The en-ca in the URL means nothing as I’ve bought from .ca websites and been charged in USD before. To be fair, it wasn’t a large company like Nintendo but it still happened. Fastest cancel I’ve ever done. So, Unless it’s explicitly called out next to the price or I’ve bought something from there before, I usually assume it’s USD.
Hmm hm ok.
And which country do you live in?
That’s CAD, it’s $450 in the US.
The GPU has less than 10% the CUDA cores of a 4090, a GPU that can’t hit 120 FPS in most modern games @4K without DLSS. No way in hell will the Switch 2 hit 120 FPS @1080p, not without some extreme DLSS upscaling and some serious graphical compromises… Proper RT is completely out of the question.
This thing won’t even be able to keep up with the PS5, a 5 year old console. It will compete with the Steam Deck, however.
That said, I miss the days when Nintendo cared about graphics. But at this point it’s been over 25 years since those days. That’s almost as long as it’s been since I last enjoyed a Mario or Zelda game. Between all this and the fact that they sue their fans, I am so done with Nintendo. I feel like I’ve outgrown them anyway.
Hello, is this your first time finding out consoles blatantly lie about 4k since console gamers have no understanding how 4k is impossible to run with the best hardware.
the PS5, a 5 year old console
Can we out spoiler tags on things that make me, someone who isn’t 30 yet, feel downright ancient please? It’s too early to be facing my mortality like that
