So, how do we feel about the Switch 2?

For me, it was a long 7 years of watching the Switch from afar. Nintendo's titles are (still) some of the few respites in the AAA field where you can find joy-driven design, uncontaminated with cynical live service nonsense. But, that poor Tegra machine buckled at the knees, dramatically and often. It was simply unfit for the task. That's why I've been excited about this new release, even if it is a refresh and not a reinvention. Just how much better is this thing?

Look, if money was less of a concern, I would have bought a Switch. But I'm a PC gamer and I spend a lot of cash on my machine, where I can get high frame rates and great image quality. I can also anything in the third party library on that thing, so it would all come down to first party software. Which is top notch, but there's not that much of it. And you have stuff like Zelda barely holding 30fps together... all these years have only made the situation worse. Yeah, it's called Switch because you need to Switch it off!!!

Digital Foundry has put together a great technical overview of the system. Early impressions are good, but there's not much to go on yet.

Mario Kart World holds great promise for the future, with a beautiful presentation, both in visuals and performance. However, it's the only Switch 2 game available to test.

The update to the Zelda titles we were promised also bring them up to 60fps, which is wonderful, but is ultimately a belated fix that brings them back up to the performance floor I find pleasant.

There's 2 big issues, unfortunately. First and foremost, even though the software supports HDMI 2.1, the dock handicaps the connection's throughput so that you cannot get anything above a 4K60Hz signal. This is a huge shame, since this system could run plenty of its less demanding titles at higher framerates. The second issue is the screen. It's not OLED, and it shows significant motion blur, both of which are downgrades compared to the OLED edition of the original system.

I would still very much like to pick one up sometime. Metroid Prime 4 is a must, and Donkey Kong Bananza looks pretty good. But instead of being a perfect balm to the Switch's notable performance shortcomings, it is an imperfect one. Here's hoping that the aforementioned issues can at least be solved in a future revision.