The Nintendo Switch 2 Controversy - Is it Worth it?

Daniel (00:20.91)
How's it going everyone? It's Daniel here of the GZ Chop Shop with fellow host, fellow host, Greg. Okay. We had a little bit of a debate before this. Our friend Patrick intentionally pointed out some things. So I'm hosting today. Okay. That's right. Hit that subscribe button and don't forget to check us out at gzchopshoppodcast.com.

Greg (00:50.848)
Can we just give a round of applause to Daniel for his first host introduction? That was actually pretty good. I'm proud of you. You did me proud.

Daniel (00:51.0)
Daniel (00:57.878)
I'm I'm I'm proud of me. So today we're going to be talking Nintendo Direct and there's a lot of stuff, a lot of a lot of mixed reactions with with Nintendo right now. On one hand, people are excited that we're getting a switch to it's been it's been talked about for quite a few years with some alleged leaks here and there. How old is the switch now?

coming up on what 10, 10 years old. and, and before we go into the conversation on the switch to mind you, regardless of how we feel about Nintendo, they didn't just outsell Xbox and PlayStation. They, they, they dominated in every way and, and a variety of factors went into it, course, but

Greg (01:27.88)
It's 10 years. Yeah.

Daniel (01:55.148)
There's no way around it. When it, when it came to those three consoles, switch dominated and, and, and the switch was a great, it was, it was great for what it is. and here they are. They dropped a, a switch to, and real quick, let's look at these specs, the specs alone on the switch to, okay. And, and, and I come at this

Because what have we, what have people been talking about when it comes to the Switch in recent years? It's the graphics. And it seems everyone is under the impression that Nintendo and Nintendo games should always have the same exact top tier graphical capabilities as PlayStation and Xbox. And the graphics card is the thing that matters the most, yada, yada, yada. And that's just not true.

So we're going to go over the new specs here. The size is going to be about the same. It looks like it's a little bit bigger, four and a half inches tall, 10.7 inches wide. The screen is going to be a 7.9 inch LCD screen. It's going to support HDR 10 up to 120 Hertz and 1920 over 1080 pixels. And then we get down to the video output.

3840 by 2160, that's 4K resolution at 60 FPS. That's what they're at least saying it's capable of. And 4020 FPS at the regular like HD 1920 over 1080 resolution while still supporting HDR 10. And if this is to be taken at face value and this is true, then

That's that's really good in my opinion for for Nintendo and for any game that comes out. Those are held PCs. People have PCs that don't even run it at what this is alleging it can do. The issues that people are having are not just the price tag. I think the price tag was slightly expected and this was before the tariffs were announced, but

Daniel (04:17.208)
the price of the games. And I know that's something you had had had had some some some things to say about their $80 started off rip off rip.

Greg (04:30.454)
starting off at $80. And so it's coming through. I don't know how true this is. Have to do a little bit more digging. A lot of people are saying that it's misinformation that the physical copy is going to be $90 and that the digital and physical are both going to be $80, which is still a little pricey, especially in today's economy. Regardless, if that's true or not, know, $80 is $80. That's

That's nothing to sneeze at. But if it is true that the physical copy will be $10 more, I will say we shot ourselves in the foot with our own gun because Nintendo gave us what we asked for in a very messed up way. And you're probably thinking to yourself, when did we ever ask for this? Well, we did it in a roundabout way when we said, why doesn't digital cost less?

than physical, which I stand by because physical copy, I'm getting a tangible collectible item for the money that I've spent that can never be taken away from me. Granted, the game being actually on the disk and not just a CD key where digital is a long term loaner that at any given moment, the license can expire. The company no longer wants to provide and they get to walk away with your money because you agreed to the terms of service.

to even play the game. So that money just gets burned up. You get no return on investment. Nintendo basically, if the games are 80 and $90, solve both problems while charging what they want because they said, hey, the digital is less than the physical like you want it. But this is the new price point.

Daniel (06:20.459)
It's fucking assholes

Daniel (06:25.346)
Nintendo is so greedy. They are the greediest ones out of all three. All three. I get angry with Microsoft with their bullshit. Sony has their bullshit and Nintendo by far is the worst and I will die on this hill.

Greg (06:43.158)
So I will say, and this is not me cutting Nintendo Slack, but I will say there is a hindsight thing that a lot of us are forgetting. And I think this is where their $80 price point came from for their games. Nintendo subscription service is by far the cheapest of the three.

Daniel (07:03.982)
Is that the, it's what 599 for, for just a single.

Greg (07:06.238)
Yeah, you can get an entire, yeah, you can get an entire year for your family. Multiple accounts. Yeah, for like a hundred dollars or less.

Daniel (07:13.326)
Yeah, it's like 606070 bucks or something for the year. Which is what game pass used to be or Xbox Live. It was what Xbox Live used to be back in the day.

Greg (07:26.742)
Yeah. And now that'll, you know, game pass will run you up to about the same amount as PlayStation. If you pay for a year, you're looking like over 100, almost $200 guaranteed.

Daniel (07:38.37)
Now what about these game upgrades that they're charging for?

Greg (07:44.342)
the game upgrades. cannot, I cannot justify those. That's, you know, the word is that nobody can justify those. The word is that to upgrade games like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom to be switched to worthy, kind of like what the PS5 did with PS4 games, Nintendo is going to charge extra 20 to $30 for those upgrades.

Daniel (07:50.03)
don't think anybody can.

Daniel (08:10.638)
This is where my confusion was are they charging are they are they saying they're gonna charge us if we want to play the game that we have for the switch one on switch to or Are they charging us to upgrade the graphics? What are they charging us for?

Greg (08:24.576)
They're charging to pretty much upgrade it, which Sony did the same thing for a lot of games. Not every game that could be PS5 upgraded was free a lot. That was kind of like up to the devs. Most Nintendo games, they're Nintendo. Nintendo is the dev, so they can they can do that. But I. You can still play it the way it is, but you're probably.

Daniel (08:45.208)
So I should still be able to play my game the way it is.

I guarantee you it's a waste of money. spend 30, $40 or whatever to upgrade your game and then you upgrade it it looks the fucking same.

Greg (08:58.762)
Now here's the thing, I don't think Nintendo is stupid. You don't get to be a company over a hundred years old by not knowing how to play the game that you created. So I think what you're gonna see is the Switch 2 is probably going to intentionally highlight how big of a difference it is between the Switch and the Switch 2 in terms of quality. I think they're gonna make it so you see just how, I don't wanna say bad.

Daniel (09:06.382)
crafty bastards.

Greg (09:27.146)
But you know how like you look back at a game you used to look at as a kid, you thought this was the peak of gaming, like how we remember Ocarina of Time in our minds compared to how it actually looks. Very pixelated, very blocky. You could cut your eyes on that stuff. I think what's gonna happen is the Switch 2, because it's so powerful, is going to intentionally downgrade or make very obvious

Daniel (09:37.28)
Right. Very pixelated and blocky and yeah.

Greg (09:56.074)
the difference in quality.

Daniel (09:57.73)
Now I've seen a lot of people online saying the opposite. They think that like Duskblood's, I've seen people suggesting, trying to say that the game looks like a PS2 game, which I think is a bit of an exaggeration. You can argue that maybe the recording of a game on YouTube looks a certain way or doesn't look that great, but to say PlayStation 2,

Greg (10:14.665)
Yeah.

Daniel (10:26.776)
Graphics have you not played a PlayStation 2? I think Complaining about the Nintendo and saying that it has PlayStation 4 graphics doesn't make sense because the specs are highlighted and I think There again the recording that you see put on the internet is just not going to reflect the final product and it usually doesn't

Greg (10:51.348)
And I wish people would understand that, you know, YouTube videos, especially of game recordings, as you know, go through levels of compression and processing. This is like the same argument with Resident Evil 4 Remake got announced and people were complaining about the rain graphics and how terrible they look. And when we got the game, we realized, the rain graphics were actually fine. But when the videos go through compression and reach YouTube, you're not seeing the game.

in its actual quality, you're seeing it like after two levels of compression from whatever capture device they use that compressed it so that they can edit it. And then once they put it on YouTube, it gets compressed even further. So the visual quality is going to change so that video can actually be uploaded to their server. It has to be minimized in size.

Daniel (11:43.158)
Yeah. And like most of the complaints, I feel like a lot of the complaints are valid, especially when it comes to the price. The only one that I'm just not buying is the complaints about the graphics. I just, I'm, I feel like that's just complaining. Like, like you're already complaining about everything else. So now you're just complaining about more shit. Complain about the facts, complaining about the things that are true, not the things you're perceiving.

Greg (12:06.902)
I

Yeah.

perceived. Yeah, I think the and I'm sorry, I'm gonna die on this hill. blame the PC community for the graphics arguments because we know a majority of them are heavy on GPU and run.

Daniel (12:27.298)
Which is crazy to me because the amount of, cause I'm a PC gamer. I love my rig and yet the amount of PC gamers I know that can't build a rig worth a damn. I'm not even kidding. They'll have a I five and be like, well, I have a 50, 60,000 TI. I'm like, yeah, but you, the rest of your stuff, shit dude. But that's a whole other story. But yeah, you get these people, they buy a rig online. They get the best graphics card.

Greg (12:43.732)
I got the 5080.

Yeah.

Daniel (12:57.59)
And and then they try to explain to everyone else how wrong they are or how wrong all the other. It just blows my mind how many of them are just wrong when it comes to talking about graphics. The Nintendo switch to. On paper is a lot of things people asked for. And then you get into, again, the prices and. The upgrade shit.

Greg (13:08.694)
you

Daniel (13:26.766)
I would not be surprised if they change their online subscription fees at some point. I'm very surprised. I'm very surprised it's been $5.99 for this long.

Greg (13:34.292)
I don't think you're gonna do that.

Greg (13:39.144)
I don't think Nintendo is going to change their subscription fees because they they've always marketed themselves as a family oriented company and love them or hate them. They've stuck true to that and their subscription fees being the price that they are is because they know they don't focus heavily on online. They have online as games, but they're not high profile games like

Call of Duty, Valorant, I think their highest profile online game is Fortnite. And they're not charging you really to play Fortnite, they're charging you to play their games online, but they know a majority of their player base is playing at home with the people in the house. So changing their subscription fee to be more would do them more harm than good. Now my question is, everyone is upset about the price point.

for, you know, let's say the top end of the Nintendo Switch, $499. And let's not forget Sony released the PS5 Pro at a price point of like $700. Now, yes.

Daniel (14:53.016)
They really did and everyone's just going to forget about that.

Greg (14:55.7)
Yeah, now they Sony did get a little pushback, but I will tell you this. I saw more people posting their pictures. I did a thing. I bought a PS five pro at it's still $700 price point and we're upset at Nintendo having a $499 price point. And I know some people say, it's not the cost of the console. It's the cost of the games and well,

I hate to say it, Nintendo has their own market. They can do that. They sell nostalgia.

Daniel (15:31.138)
I will say the argument that Nintendo is being greedy with their IPs and all that, I disagree. I disagree. think everyone's getting a little spoiled because Microsoft's failing so fucking bad that they have to start sharing all their shit. And I said what I said and I, know.

I used to own an Xbox. I am a fan in some ways of Microsoft. And I have my issues with Sony. I will call these studios out as I see them. But just because Microsoft wants to share their games, to pretend to appease their fans because they're sucking at a bunch of other things, does not mean everyone else has to do anything. And I know if I was a business and I had a product that

overwhelmingly sold every single, every single season of new console that I put out, I wouldn't be budging. And the truth of the matter is the switch to is probably going to sell just as well, if not better somehow than the first switch. So I think, I think people are just mad that

Greg (16:43.12)
absolutely.

Greg (16:49.643)
The-

Daniel (16:53.112)
They're going to have to pay money that they don't want to pay, which I don't blame them. I don't blame them in that. The price tags I think are ridiculous.

Greg (16:59.51)
also think that a lot of scalpers are outing themselves as, and masking like your average gamer because of the restrictions that Nintendo has put in place to pre-order on their site.

Daniel (17:13.39)
Well, and that's another thing that people have been upset about too is the process to pre-order, which the process to pre-order specifically through Nintendo, not necessarily to pre-order through, I guess like Best Buy or whatever. But I, this is, again, we wanted something in place to deal with scalpers and now we have something in place to deal with scalpers and people are pissed.

Greg (17:26.283)
Yeah.

Greg (17:42.102)
So here's a fun fact that I don't know if you knew this. It's the scalpers are such a problem. Then most of them apparently stem from America. The restrictions that are put in place are not as severe in Japan because what happened when the switch launched the American scalpers bought

the systems in Japan because they're always cheaper in Japan. And in case people didn't know this, the price for our version and the Japanese only version are almost like $50 difference. Theirs is cheaper than ours. And what happened was the scalpers bought up all the international ones in Japan at a cheaper price and then resold them at a marked up value in America.

So what they did with the Switch 2 is the Japanese versions are gonna be completely Japanese. They will not play in a different language. They were like, no, our international versions, even in Japan, are gonna be 450 to $500. And the Japanese only version is going to be the cheaper version. So if you are fluent in reading Japanese and you don't mind playing...

your console in Japanese, you can get the switch to at a more affordable price from Japan directly. Sucks for scalpers because they're you know, they'll have a whole load of systems that they can't can't offload. But yeah, we kind of let scalpers run rampant for for too long, which kind of forced Nintendo to do this, because I think that's also why they do the games the way they do, because.

their games are collectibles. You're not gonna find a Nintendo game on any other system and you can't sell emulation. A Nintendo game is a collector's item. That's...

Daniel (19:53.014)
Yeah, and you gotta think too, like Nintendo is the one the one company whose games you can't emulate because if you do, if you do emulate and they find out they will they will literally try to send you to jail. It is crazy. What was that one dude back a few years ago ended up I think you went to jail or

Greg (20:03.537)
Greg (20:18.868)
Yeah, he got like a huge fine. I remember you. I don't remember his name, but he got like a huge fine because he was emulating Nintendo games and, you know.

Daniel (20:27.468)
Yeah, I don't remember who is a while ago, but that's just one example. I mean, for a while there, they Nintendo was on a roll like you've what some YouTubers mentioned Nintendo on their fucking like the way the way they they way they mentioned it and they like flipped out. So yeah, you got to be careful with them. I like I'm surprised people even stream. Matter of fact, I

Greg (20:40.97)
Nintendo's like, What? I think to.

Greg (20:52.79)
It's risky.

Daniel (20:54.08)
It's risky to even stream their stuff. Like it's crazy how much they don't care about a suey you.

Greg (21:01.364)
I think, and like I said, I'm not cutting them slack. I'm looking at this from a business perspective. Nintendo knows the product they have and they don't want the importance of the product they have to get watered down, which is something emulators would do. Because if they're selling nostalgia, they're selling collectibles and then all, mean, and you can just go emulate it, you wind up in the Microsoft situation.

which is probably why Nintendo laughed Microsoft out of their office all those years ago. They already knew that they had a bad business plan because look at what Game Pass is doing to Microsoft. It's causing them to bleed money because now people are saying, why should I buy a game when I can just do the subscription service and get that game for free?

Daniel (21:53.314)
Yeah, and yet and I mean not to not to go to often the different direction here, but that's something we have been talking about for years is how much money Microsoft is losing because of game pass because nobody's buying the games and when these studios do not get the full price of their games given back to them back to those same studios and they don't get a return in profit and some what do you think happens and it's it's built up a negative deficit.

Greg (22:00.896)
years.

Greg (22:18.26)
And I think Nintendo is just. Yeah, and I think Nintendo is just thinking of its long term, because once they sell us a physical copy of the game, that's it. It's out of their hands. There's no taking it back.

Daniel (22:30.092)
Well, that's a thing too is the key card, the key cards that they're going to be doing. I don't know if you read about those, but my understanding, I don't think it's all of the games, but they're going to be introducing them. And it's basically what we all know games are anyways, but the game is not going to be downloaded on the hard copy anymore. The hard copy is going to be.

Greg (22:56.17)
I've heard Mick, yeah, he did download it. I've heard two things on that. I will, we won't know for sure until it comes out. I don't want to theorize on that too much because you know, you don't want to create a false sense of panic. It's like, well then the physical copy is completely pointless, which

Daniel (22:58.71)
the key to download the game from online.

Greg (23:24.018)
Yeah, Nintendo, you know, because they did it, I think, like two years ago, they partnered up with a mobile company. So, yeah, they're making a big push into the digital age, but they also know half of their market is physical copies, you know, collectibles. And if they push too hard into that, I think they would do themselves more harm than good. Probably for like their...

high profile IPs, know people would try to emulate, might do that, you know, as like an extra security measure of some sort. But I don't see every one of their games going in that, that direction.

Daniel (24:06.186)
I think I think from their perspective and and Sony and Microsoft's when they when there are there there's a time where you can go and you could go to the the bin at Walmart or whatever and you could dig through five dollar games just like you could movies and you'd find a game you're like it's five bucks or whatever the case you could go to you know even now for the ones that are still around you can go to GameStop and buy a used game and what do you think is gonna happen?

Greg (24:34.902)
people are asking they're like, well, if you go to the store and you get a switch to pre-owned game, but because that person already used the code and you go to put the game in, is it just not gonna work?

Daniel (24:46.124)
Wait, well it's gonna, not that, I mean GameStop has.

Games. I feel bad saying this because I GameStop holds a special place, especially the millennials. But they also did it to themselves. So I feel bad, but I also don't feel bad for GameStop. But let's be honest, this next generation of consoles GameStop's probably not going to make it through this next this next big push through the next gen of consoles when everything does go digital. I mean,

Unless what GameStop turns into a bunch of retro graded arcade plazas and and car game.

Greg (25:27.926)
I mean, they've been, yeah, they've been expanding their retro stores, selling all the systems that they have in warehouses that weren't selling. They've brought them out of their warehouses and refurbished them and.

Daniel (25:40.002)
Which is something I think GameStop, might be their go-to, is they might have to all go to that model if they wanted to still stay in the game and not go under.

Greg (25:50.314)
Well, I mean, that's finite because, you know, eventually that backlog is going to run out. I don't see people that buy those collectible consoles taking them back. You know, it's people who miss their childhood. They cherish that stuff. So that that those warehouses are eventually run out. That's borrowed time.

Daniel (25:57.059)
Yeah.

Daniel (26:09.964)
Right. Yeah. And I mean, even.

Even even with all that digital is still going to It's gonna ultimately take over. I mean, there's nowhere There's no way to go with this and it's not like Nintendo knows this with old games I can sell you or give you an old game from an old system with these new systems. I can't do that They weren't making back money with the reselling of their games

Greg (26:43.872)
Yeah, they pretty much have eliminated people being able to share games because it's the same thing that streaming companies have done. You know, they got tired of people sharing the password. They said one person buys the account, but 30 people are watching from this one account. We're missing out on 29 people making us money. So how do we fix this? We limit it. We put penalties in place. Password shares not allowed.

You know, if you started off in New Jersey and then two minutes later, it says you logged in and lost out Los Angeles, California. No, you're done, you know. So, yeah, video games are going the same route. And like I said, from a business perspective, as a business owner myself, I get where they're coming from. But they're so massive, I don't think it would have.

Daniel (27:23.224)
Yeah, dear.

Greg (27:43.664)
hurt them to keep things the way they are. That's like a strategy. A smaller business has to take into consideration to survive, you know, because you need that revenue to become a bigger business. But Nintendo has been around for 100 years. You know, their games were getting passed around left and right for decades and they didn't go under. Yeah, they weren't making, you know, that money, but they thrived.

Daniel (28:13.41)
I'm surprised Nintendo doesn't have like Nintendo only arcades just throughout the country just to make more money.

Greg (28:20.768)
They might, just probably not in America.

Daniel (28:22.934)
It just seems like a move they'd make and then they'd like, I don't know, charge you a monthly membership to your something. don't know.

Greg (28:28.246)
monthly membership taxes and it would go and it would work. It would absolutely work. People would pay for it. It would sell like crazy. I here's the thing. Every time Nintendo drops something people get upset. That's nothing new. They get upset at the price and people have been showing pictures from way back in the day that Nintendo games certain Nintendo games. They're very selective on the ones that take pictures of sold for $80 back in the day.

Daniel (28:34.062)
It would sell like crazy.

Greg (28:55.67)
And the one argument that drives me up a wall is the inflation argument. People always keep going, well, if you adjust for inflation, games today would actually be 150. No, $80 is 80 freaking dollars. No matter what era you cut it in, no matter what way you try to spin it, inflation is a fancy word for greed. And this is a hill I'm gonna die on. I'm sorry if I tick off anyone who's studying economics and spent four or five years to learn all this.

extra jargon. How does inflation start? Well, they go, well, the demand for product. Okay. Why does the cost of a product go up? It's not a natural occurring thing. It's not a part of nature that suddenly makes the price of something go up.

Daniel (29:43.646)
Nature... Nature pricing!

Greg (29:45.704)
nature pricing. Inflation is someone literally waking up saying, I want to charge more for my product. Whatever that reason is. And the way they justify it so that people don't get up in arms, they say, I had to hire more people. had to outsource to more resources. Yet when you do enough digging, the amount of money spent to create said product is almost pennies.

Daniel (29:55.306)
whatever that reason is.

Greg (30:15.38)
So what do they need the extra money for? And not to get too into the economics argument here, but this comes back down to billionaires and why ethically they should not exist is because it's literally proven they have to abuse people to become billionaires. They're the ones that set inflation because they abuse workers.

hiring and making this round the clock product that doesn't cost them that much money.

Daniel (30:45.838)
I like how Nintendo Direct led to you damn near having a whole crash out over billionaires. You're not wrong, but I'm going to stop you there before you go on a tangent because I see it coming.

Greg (30:51.298)
Greg (30:57.177)
It's always bug me especially with the video game argument everyone always goes adjust for inflation adjust for inflation and I'm like You guys are you guys just gonna throw out adjust for inflation because you heard that on a youtube video and you're like, That sounds good. I'll sound smart me say adjust for inflation. No one argued. No one understand And I'm like adjust for inflation No, $80 is $80 the difference between today and then is

Daniel (31:16.536)
Dude.

Greg (31:24.79)
The income matched the cost. The only reason people complain was because it was our parents buying the video games for us and there was no value in their eyes to video games. They didn't see you making anything of it. They saw it as a waste of time. That was their complaint. And because who spends $200 on something they see as a waste of time? No one. That's why to them they saw it was

It was an expensive waste of time. It wasn't they couldn't afford it. It was just an expensive waste of time to them. I could put this $200 to something that will be useful in your future.

but they had the income to match. Today, the income does not match the rising costs. And they're like, well, inflation, and I'm like, you guys are not understanding. The costs go up, but weirdly enough, the pay can't go up to match. So how can the costs keep going up? Make it make, that doesn't make sense. How can the costs easily go up?

Daniel (32:31.768)
Does it make sense? You know, you know, and again, not to go off on a whole other tangent here. It's okay. But it does feel like sometimes you're just like some dude that's like, you know what? Fuck it. Like, and it's just one guy just like, fuck everything. And then like the next day he's like, sobering up. He's like, it's okay. Bring it back down a little bit. It's okay. But, but yeah,

Greg (32:37.866)
I just had my crash on I'm sorry, guys.

Greg (32:45.972)
Yo, that's what I'm saying!

Greg (32:55.968)
Bring it back down, bring it back down. We got a little too greedy. We got a little too greedy. People can't keep up.

Daniel (33:01.718)
You guys, you tell us what you guys think your thoughts. Leave them down below in the comments. Talk to us. Are you happy with what Nintendo is doing with the switch to and some of the changes they've made and some of the things are bringing? Are you getting a switch to? Are you pissed? Are you pissed? Why? Tell us below because we we we feel everything wrong. Both sides of this. What do you guys think? Leave comments below for us.

Greg (33:14.016)
Are you getting a switch too? I'm gonna get a switch too. I'm gonna get a switch too.

Greg (33:29.302)
Do think my crash out is justified?

Daniel (33:32.174)
Do you think and we, we will talk to you guys again on the next episode of the Jeezy Chop Shop later.