The Switch 2 is Here, and Mario Kart World (and other racing games)

[A Black Falcon]

See, the L and R buttons curl around to the sides of the system, and they are very.. VERY easy to accidentally press just by holding the thing.

Holy crap that sucks.

I'm not sure what is meant about the buttons here, but as with the Switch 1 I've used my Switch 2 entirely on TV; once I got setup complete it went in the dock and I haven't taken it out once so far.  I've only been using the Pro Controller 2, not the Joycon 2s, and I would say that it's nice.  It's an improvement over the Pro Controller 1, though sadly it does still have some of the same dpad issues as the last one, it still will activate directions you didn't press.  Infuriating stuff sometimes, how did Nintendo mess this up?  Still, the feel is great, it feels much more premium than the Switch 1 Pro Controller.  It's a good controller.

I'm not gonna get a Switch 2 any time soon. It doesn't seem that much more impressive than the Switch. Nowadays, I feel like new console iterations are basically the same as phone/tablet iterations. My iPad 6 works fine, I don't need the latest and the greatest. Obviously this locks me out of newer games, but consoles are so expensive these days, and there are already so many good existing games, I'd rather just wait out a price drop. Only reason I want a PS5 is to play the remade Silent Hill 2, and apparently Cyberpunk 2077 greatly benefits from the improved hardware of current gen.

I admit my ignorance on the subject. It's just that when I was a kid, jumping from say, Super Nintendo to N64 just felt like "wow, everything's different, this is a whole new experience". I haven't felt that in a while.

On the one hand, visually the Switch 2 really is a significant upgrade over the Switch 1.  It really is a large improvement.  Mario Kart World and DK Bananza both are games that definitely would not run on a Switch 1, and they are both great.  

On the other hand, it is true that tech improvements are less noticeable than they used to be.  Some years back we passed the point of diminishing returns in how noticeable tech improvements are.  The same degree of improvement in transistor density and gigaflops and what have you results in a significantly less noticeable improvement because the base level has hit the point of being good enough that the difference, while huge in technical levels, is harder for most people to discern.  It is much much easier to see the difference between, say, 240p and 480p than 1080p to 4k.  I'd say that's just how eyes work, once things get higher resolution the differences, while real, appear more subtle.  Still, the Switch 2 really is a quite large, immediately noticeable upgrade.  The Switch 1 is pretty old hardware at this point and the upgrade is more noticeable than some.

Also, I would say that console upgrades are nothing like phone upgrades because there is a new phone model every year, minimum, and maybe more than one a year some years.  This is also how PC graphics cards work.  Consoles, however, have multi-year gaps between systems.  There were eight years between the Switch 1 and Switch 2, for instance -- in tech terms that's a long time.  How noticeable the tech improvements are is certainly less than before but console generation lengths are longer than they once were they do lead to improvements that are more noticeable than phone or graphics card improvements are, if less so than they were 30 years ago just because of how much tech has advanced.


Oh, and yes, I am still playing Mario Kart World somewhat regularly, primarily in online races.  It's a very fun game.