Nintendo recently unveiled their upcoming Swtich 2 which is set to launch on June 5, 2025. As expected, the Switch 2 offers a lot of improvements over its predecessor, the Switch. However, it doesn’t really offer too much in terms of innovation this time around compared to Nintendo’s previous consoles.
In a clip highlighted by Easy Allies, former president of PlayStation Shuhei Yoshida discussed his reactions to the announcement of the Switch 2. Evidently, Yoshida actually felt somewhat disappointed by the Switch 2.
“To me, it was a bit of a mixed message from Nintendo,” said Yoshida. “I think Nintendo is losing their identity, in my opinion.”
“To me, it was a bit of a mixed message from Nintendo. I think Nintendo is losing their identity, in my opinion.” — Shuhei Yoshida
It’s honestly kind of amazing how Nintendo has been able to compete with other console developers despite sticking with cheaper hardware and tech. Rather than impressing fans with the specs of their consoles, they instead always pushed for creating unique gameplay experiences that couldn’t really be found on other devices (though it can be argued that others would often copy Nintendo afterwards).
While the Switch 2 is effectively just a better Switch, the new mouse functionality is an interesting new addition for Nintendo. As such, Nintendo actually spent quite a bit of time during their recent Direct simply talking about how the Switch 2 has improved over its predecessor.
“For me, they are always about creating some new experience, like designing hardware and games, together to create that amazing experience,” continued Yoshida.
“But the Switch 2, as we all anticipated, is a better Switch, right? It has a larger screen, a more powerful processor, higher resolution… and they even have the hardware person starting the stream like other platforms do.”
“Because it’s a better Switch, the core premise of the whole Switch 2 is ‘We made things better.’ And that’s something other companies have been doing all the time.” — Shuhei Yoshida
Yoshida then goes on to talk about how Nintendo is now basically just following along with other companies like Sony and Microsoft. The argument is that they’re just producing a better version of the last console rather than innovating new features that can lead to different gameplay experiences.
“Because it’s a better Switch, the core premise of the whole Switch 2 is ‘We made things better.’ And that’s something other companies have been doing all the time,” declared Yoshida.
“Of course, it’s a more powerful Switch, so it’s great if your gaming was only on Nintendo hardware. It’s the first time for you to be able to play amazing games like Elden Ring, but for the core gamers who own multiple [pieces of hardware] like the PlayStation, Xbox, or PC, the games they showed off, especially from third parties, were… well, in theory, it’s amazing to have all these all-stars of industry games on Nintendo hardware. However, what they showed were like… ooh…”
Though the Switch 2 is essentially just a more advanced version of the Switch, it’s being price at $449.99, which has been a huge controversy amongst the gaming community. Nintendo also had to cancel their original preorder date in the U.S. due to concerns regarding tariffs, but recently rescheduled it for April 24.
Will the Switch 2 be worth that price tag, or will the console end up as another disappointment like the Wii U ended up being? We’ll just have to see how things play out to find out.
Special guest Shuhei Yoshida gets real about the Switch 2 pic.twitter.com/CzZYPnTtue
— Easy Allies (@EasyAllies) April 14, 2025
Source: Event Hubs