Well, we finally got the Switch 2 news that everyone wanted. And a whole lot of news people didn’t want. According to the reactions after the fact, the Switch 2 is far too overpriced, the games are overpriced, and Nintendo has ruined everything! That’s quite a lot of responsibility this one console release has to bear, especially considering that a launch price of $450 is fairly reasonable considering the other consoles on the market. I mean, sure, Nintendo has, historically, been the cheaper option and the underperforming console in general (in regards to the technical specifications, I mean), but I figured it wasn’t going to last forever. Screens are actually really expensive and including one on a console is a pretty pricey part, even if the rest of the console has cheaper parts to make up for it. All of which is to say that I’m not surprised, this is what I expected given the price increase in some of Nintendo’s most recent games, but I was a bit surprised by the lack of anything that made me actually want to acquire one on launch day. I mean, I got the Switch on launch day because of the new Legend of Zelda game that was launching with it and while the Mario Kart game coming out as a launch title for the Switch 2 is interesting enough to make me break my habit of ignoring every new Mario Kart game, I don’t think it’s enough to make me want to go through the hassle of trying to get one on the day of release. A month and a half after that, there’ll be a new 3D Donkey Kong game for the first time in decades and THAT is definitely intriguing, but I’m not sure it’s interesting enough to contend with scalpers, waiting in line for several hours, or endlessly refreshing a webpage in hopes of getting a reservation.

All of which doesn’t even go into the news that has come out between me writing down the idea for this post on April second and me actually writing it on April eighth because, it turns out, pre-orders aren’t even an option for the US anymore since Trump come out with his latest tariff bullshit a day or two after the Switch 2 release date announcement (which is in June, FYI). So now the pre-order window for the US is cancelled, the price is definitely going to go up, and the entire US economy is plunging into a recession that has me anxious about how tonight’s grocery run is going to go. At this point, I’m confident I’m not going to buy a Switch 2 and am incredibly glad I bought a new mattress last summer since I doubt I’d be able to afford one this summer like I originally planned. It’s impossible to know what’s going to happen over the next few weeks and months (a common refrain on this blog), but I’m at least confident now that things are going to positively suck. I doubt things will improve given that the stock market has been steadily dropping which is what all the economic folks consider the sign of a recession and the absolute final word on the health of the economy, which unfortunately disregards more complex things like the fact that adjusting the prices of past Nintendo consoles for inflation places a lot of them in the same neighborhood as the Switch 2 but doesn’t account for the fact that wages have absolutely NOT kept up with inflation so that four hundred dollars is a much more difficult amount to part with. I mean, that’s my food budget for a month, just about, and I remember when that much would cover me for two months…

So I won’t be buying a new game console this year. Hell, I might not even be able to AFFORD a new game console this year, depending on how things go. I have no idea what my economic outlook will be a month from now or even how it’ll look the next time I pay rent, so dropping that much money on a game console feels foolhardy. Better to spend it on food that’ll last a long time on the shelf or access to some kind of renewable resource like solar power or garden access. Better to save it so when costs start going up or inflation happens or whatever, I’ll have some padding to help balance things out. I mean, I literally can’t afford to live my current lifestyle without some amount of overtime in my month and my current lifestyle is already pretty dang frugal. I don’t have many costs left to cut out. I mean, I do have some, and I’m definitely going to be taking some time to cut what I can over the next month, but it’s stuff like paying for a single streaming service or supporting the patreons of my favorite artists and podcasters. Or, eventually, stopping my subscription to Final Fantasy 14 if it comes to that. Which would suck, but I don’t need FF14 to live and I do need an apartment of some kind so I can’t exactly skip out on my rent.

Back when I first thought of this post, it was going to be a reflection on how lackluster the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct felt, given that most of what they had to offer is stuff that doesn’t appeal to me specifically and how the general reaction to it has worsen over time as people have learned about prices and whatnot. Now, all of that feels kind of silly and pointless in the face of the continued destruction of the country I live in and what seems like an idiot’s attempt to tank the world economy. I mean, this is going to go so badly and, almost a week in, Trump has shown no signs of being willing to listen to his usual toadies about maybe not fucking over the entire world. Which, you know, probably says that the only ones he’s listening to are the ones who stand to benefit from another recession and are probably excited about their chance to depress wages even further, create uncertainty in the job market, and screw over everyone who doesn’t have so much money that it has become an abstract concept rather than a concrete ruler of our day-to-day lives. Like usual. So I’ve barely thought about the Switch 2 since all this stuff went down (like the stock market still is!) and even now it feels like of superfluous and silly to spend any time on when I’ve got a ton of other actually pressing issues or things to think about/spend my time on that won’t cost me more than a month’s groceries. I have to be practical, sometimes, and it’s starting to seem like the idea of getting a Switch 2 any time soon is going to stay an impractical fantasy.