So, Nintendo dropped the big news about the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, an interactive experience packed with minigames, tech demos, and surprises to present the features of the new console-American style-But here’s the kicker-It’s not for free. And the players are furious.
Being considered a day of June 5 reception, the Welcome Tour is pitched to be a nice, hands-on way to get dirty with the Switch 2 features. Making a really bad comparison, consider Astro’s Playroom for the PlayStation 5-the problem with that was Astro’s Playroom was given free to the console by rights. Nintendo is charging $10 for their Welcome Tour, the entire cyberspace is in one huge tantrum.
Backlash hit Nintendo immediately after the announcements. Comments about the tweet were an outpouring of sarcasm and disbelief and ranged to pure hate. “Must be free!” screamed one player. Another one said, “The fact that this is paid when the Wii came with Wii Sports by default makes me wanna puke.” Ouch. Even those who have at least somewhat more measured responses expressed, “We have all spent $10 on far less and much worse,” somewhat begrudgingly.
The comparisons to how PlayStation went about things were inevitable. “PlayStation did this for free and y’all charging money to learn about a system 💔,” another player lamented. They do have a point; Astro’s Playroom was much more of an experience than just a tech demo. It is basically a love letter to PlayStation history that was thrown in for free with the system. The upset is from the fact that Nintendo wants to charge people for what many think is secondary to a barebones empty introduction to its new hardware.
Then, they want to take it a step further and boycott for that irritating reason. “Respect yourselves and the rest of the consumers by not buying this,” one of the frustrated fans said. Others blamed Nintendo’s higher-ups, for bringing in profit-driven suits to replace what they saw as their claims of “gamer-friendly” execs, like Reggie Fils-Aimé. “Businessmen motivate greed and unfairness,” another dumb-snap-worthy tweet said. Bittersweet, and totally unanticipated.
Hopefully, here comes the Joy-Con question. Because somebody just had to bring it up. “Did you fix the joycons or are they the same broken shit you’ve been peddling before?” One does not even know where to begin in replying. Oof. That one stings. Nintendo’s driftstick issue has been one sore subject for many years, and throwing this paid demo on top of unresolved hardware complaints? Not such a good look.
There were some who kept fairly calm about it, though. Not so many considered this “It’s 10 dollars. Get a job broke boi,” however. Everybody else thought that it should have been free with the console, no questions asked.
So, what’s Nintendo going to do? Not sure; maybe they are testing the extent to which the consumer will tolerate rising prices of games, or perhaps they actually believe that this thing is worth the cash. But the tell-tale sign of a fledgling new console? That reaction: gamers feeling nickel-and-dimed.
What’s the chance that the backlash changes anything? Therefore, nothing. But it’s the very indication that the players are watching-and they have no shame in calling these corporations for what they believe to be greed. Welcome to the Switch 2 era, delayed. A feature, with mishaps.
