What’s the appeal of the switch for when PC handhelds exist ? I just don’t get it why you would buy this unless you had children. Nintendo Games are good but they’re really not that good either.

You can legally play them on an ROG Ally or other Pc handheld . It is not illegal to emulate a game that you own.

But I get that it’s just that I don’t think Nintendo games warrant buying an entire system anymore. If their consoles had more third party support maybe, but I just don’t see the value at the current price of the console.

They could have easily fixed it with hall effect sticks. That is a proven and inexpensive solution, but Nintendo prefers to sell more joycons and create waste, it's that simple.

I wonder if Nintendo will ever embrace repairability like some phone companies have

I guess there's more competition in phones than in devices that can run Mario Cart

Mario. Zelda. Metroid. For a time the occasional Splatoon. Maybe a Wario once in a while too. Some Pikmin. Even the built-in (paid) list of emulator games are attractive.

Also, you severely underestimate the convenience factor for a lot of people. Yeah, I have a Steam Deck, and 95% of the time, it's a completely seamless experience. With consoles, it's 100% of the time. People want a "I turn it on, I start a game", not a "I turn it on, I might be able to start a game, and sometimes it needs a bit of fiddling, not much, but, more than zero. And sure, I could have this or that other thing by going there and running that, you know, sometimes".

What’s the appeal of the switch for when PC handhelds exist ? I just don’t get it why you would buy this unless you had children. Nintendo Games are good but they’re really not that good either.

with consoles, it's 100% of the time

Several Switch 1 games are facing issues on Switch 2, including broken textures, crashes and weird behavior. This whole "consoles are 100%!" idea has been dead since the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation.

People buying the console for the games that are on that console, not generations before, are 100% fine.

Beside, it's not something you have to fiddle with to get it work. Either a patch come, or you're on your own.

What’s the appeal of the switch for when PC handhelds exist ? I just don’t get it why you would buy this unless you had children. Nintendo Games are good but they’re really not that good either.

It is not illegal to emulate a game that you own.

In a lot of place it is illegal to circumvent technical protection measures, which is technically required for almost anything starting from NES era. Making it impossible to "legally" rip your own games (yes, even in places where there IS a tax to allow private copy of content you bought). So the only way you can do that is by downloading it, where there is no "legal" way to distribute it in the first place, so "legally" you can't download it either.

I'm not defending the practice, I'm saying that if you're going the "legal" defense, you're going to have a bad time if it gets attention. Fortunately, suing every single gamer on earth is not an attractive prospect.

What’s the appeal of the switch for when PC handhelds exist ? I just don’t get it why you would buy this unless you had children. Nintendo Games are good but they’re really not that good either.

It's a known and proven shit solution. Have any of you ever actually used hall effect sensor joysticks? The centering is worse, the polling rate is far worse, they use a ton more power (already a limited resource in the individual joycons) and most of all they get absolutely screwed by electromagnetic interference... Interference like, say, magnets holding the joycons on.

Ifixit is kind of full of shit here- the joysticks are the "same" only in that it's using the same general design as every other non-hall effect sensor joystick that's ever been used and most of those didn't have problems with drift.

It's not the same part as the original joycons, so the issue could be fixed- from what the switch welcome tour was saying, it seems pretty likely in fact.

What’s the appeal of the switch for when PC handhelds exist ? I just don’t get it why you would buy this unless you had children. Nintendo Games are good but they’re really not that good either.

Battery life and weight. That’s what keeps me from getting a pc handheld. Although the switch 2 is so big I don’t know if that holds true anymore

Not surprising. Nintendo is turning into the Apple of the video game world.

I owned a Switch 1, and it certainly was the Nintendo console I touched up the most. I replaced the back panel once before I got a Lite and then an OLED.

I will say given how much I took that thing on the road and the beatings it took I never found the issues unreasonable and I only ever had to fix cosmetic damage (joycons aside). I've seen Switches get a TON of usage, too.

It's not Nintendo's most rugged console, but it's certainly not a "fragile little thing" as I would define it.

Let me put it this way, I'd much rather fix a broken Steam Deck, but I was way less worried about breaking a Switch.