We’re past the first 100 days of the Switch 2. So far it’s been the same as any launch period: okay but lacking¹. I loved Donkey Kong Bananza, it was a great collect-a-thon that didn’t feel tedious and had plenty of fan service for long time DK fans. I think everyone should spend 10 minutes just playing with the movement in that game, it’s a barrel o’ fun². Mario Kart World is great (not perfect), and it feels uniquely different from Mario Kart 8 and will hopefully be around to last years³.

But outside of some first party releases we’ve got the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong & Hades II for some good indie releases, but these are both launching on Switch 1 as well.

The Switch 2 is a great upgrade, even more powerful than the Steam Deck⁴. Seeing games that have been upgraded to 4K 60fps has been really awesome for the post HD Nintendo era. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom both seem like new games. But these upgrades have been few an far between. Some first party games have received paid upgrades (like the Zelda games⁵), and other upgrades have been free updates. But one thing is severely lacking, and that’s third party support for updates.

I noticed this most recently playing both the original Hollow Knight and Hades. Both these games are still in 1080p. There are articles about how Nintendo has been holding back devkits for developers. The two games I listed were also developers working to get their new games launched, so it they could be coming.

But this also exists for first party games like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Astral Chain, and Bayonetta 3. These are still limited by the Switch 1 hardware. Action games like these could definitely get a boost in improvement for Switch 2.

I hope we’re not going to see another influx of paid upgrades like PS4 -> PS5. I don’t know the behind the scenes details but from what I’ve read it doesn’t seem like a large amount of effort to unlock resolution and frame rate on Switch 2 (textures are another deal).

People always complain about Nintendo charging money for their old games. This week’s release of Super Mario Galaxy 1+2 is another example of that. But there have been a good number of games that have been patched for free to get performance bumps. Prices are only getting higher in the video game industry (regardless of system), and where there’s money to be made… I hope that’s not the case and updates will be coming once the userbase becomes larger. There’s still not many reasons to upgrade to a Switch 2 yet, but hopefully this will be a selling point.

1. And anyone prescribing this is unique to Nintendo and not other consoles is delusional. ↩︎
2. hehehe see what I did there? ↩︎
3. Where’s my DLC Nintendo? ↩︎
4. No, I’m not going to buy a ROG Ally at double the price. ↩︎
5. These don’t deserve to be paid updates. ↩︎