And
$50 for a single JoyCon, $80 for 2. That...seems like a lot of money.
If they make one with an actual not-four-discrete-buttons D-pad, I hope it's less.
I mean, I remember the price of the N64's controllers being a huge jump from what we'd come to expect (
and you needed twice as many of them). But $80 is a lot even in a world where we're used to paying $50-$60. And you can tell me it's $80 for
two controllers all you want, but I am
extremely skeptical at the prospect of playing a game with a tiny controller-half held sideways for any length of time.
Did I say "any length of time"? Because apparently I meant
about 3 hours before the battery dies. (No wonder they kept saying it's not intended to replace the 3DS.)
USG's headline is
This Was Pretty Much the Switch's Worst Case Scenario. I don't know that I'd go
that far, unless games wind up costing $80 apiece, but it's
pretty bad. Like, not even wait-for-a-price-drop bad, but wait-for-a-hardware-refresh bad.
I'm betting they can still restrict supply enough that the thing will sell out and build some hype (because it would be
fucking embarrassing if these were sitting on the shelves and you still couldn't get an NES Mini). I do not actually want Nintendo to fail.
But
come the fuck on. Three hundred dollars, a battery life of 3 hours, and 3 launch titles? Sometimes 3 is
not a magic number, guys.
I know it's tough to put a console out. I know there are a whole lot of people working on it, and a lot of places where things might not go exactly right. But we're in "How does this happen?" territory, and the obvious answer is "lol nintendo."
A hybrid console/handheld is a swell idea, but this is neither fish nor fowl; it's too underpowered to compete as a console, its battery life is too poor for it to be a decent handheld, its price point puts it in a place where they'd better hope nobody notices that for $50 more they could just buy a PS4
and a 2DS (if only they could
find a damn 2DS), and
it has only three games.
What the fuck, Nintendo? You've been in this game longer than any of your competitors. How do you keep doing this?