Is the Switch 2 worth it or a waste of money?

If you already have a Switch, there isn't much point in buying the Switch 2. If you don't have either, I would highly suggest looking at the Steam Deck, which has a significantly more vast library of great games and has the ability to play media and other things on the go that the Swtich 2 cannot.

For me it is not currently worth it. Donkey Kong looks amazing, but I'm not paying that much just to play a single game. In a couple of years when more games are available, maybe that could change.

I'm enjoying mine. Pokopia is great.

I have both an OLED Switch and a Switch 2. If you don't have any other consoles then I'd say a Switch 2 is worth it. It's getting a lot of games the Switch 1 couldn't play and combined with the Switch 1 library there's a lot of really great games. If you have a Switch already then I'd say it's probably not worth it. Likewise if you have a PS4/5 I'd recommend playing games on that over getting a Switch 2. However having a portable "home" console is a really nice feature. Something to consider is unlike the past it looks like Switches will get more expensive in the short term rather than cheaper


In terms of games: DK Bonanza is a slightly worse Mario Odyssey, which is still a really good game! Kirby Air Ride is just ok. Mario Kart world is worse than 8 and Sonic Racing Crossworlds. Pokopia and Tamodachi are supposed to be excellent for people who like those games. Outside of that basically everything else is available on other systems

Telling people to buy a Steam Deck used to make sense, but it doesn't anymore when it's twice the price of a Switch 2 (I say this as a Steam Deck fan).

Saving tons of money on game purchases easily makes up for that. Particularly since games that you have owned for decades just work, no repurchase required. Have you seen how expensive Nintendo games are? Even on sale they are extremely expensive.

That said, I do understand why the up-front cost can hurt.

I think it’s a nice upgrade from the Switch 1 the build quality is a lot better and the screen is a huge upgrade. Performance is better too. I’ve never seen the OLED Switch 1 so I can’t speak for that but I think the upgrade would be less noticeable.

I mostly used my Switch 1 to play indie games and Nintendo Exclusives like BOTW and TOTK.

On Switch 1 both Zeldas, and Hades 1 would all drop frames at certain points. For Balatro on Switch 1 I had to disable everything in the visuals settings because the game would chug when you started scoring high. I don’t have these problems on Switch 2.

Lastly, IMO if you can comfortably afford it and want one you should get one now before hardware prices increase even more. Nintendo is eventually going to stop supporting Switch 1 and there’s some good games like Pokopia that are only Switch 2 already.

At the same time, my friends and I lend our Switch games out to one another, which we don't have the ability to do with Steam. I'm currently borrowing Star Fox and enjoying it, while friend A is borrowing my copy of Donkey Kong Bananza and friend B is borrowing Tears of the Kingdom. I bought maybe 2 Switch games last year, but played 10.

Before anyone mentions family sharing on Steam, we tried that, but Valve quickly caught on to the fact that we didn't live in the same household and cut us off.

Depends on how much you'd want to use it, to be honest.

People balked at its price tag at launch, but it's currently the cheapest entry point to gaming. It delivers better performance than the Steam Deck at nearly half the price, but the tradeoff is the closed ecosystem.

If there are key games you want to play on Switch 2 that are easy to get for less than MSRP, I'd say it's worth it. If you are only interested in games that are also available on every other platform, and you have other options to play them, I'd skip the Switch 2 and save your money. It's probably not worth it for just 1 or 2 big exclusive titles right now. But it's only been around for a little over a year, so there will also certainly be more to look forward to down the road.

The only other factor is that hardware is continuing to get more expensive over time. Short of a major changes to global production/the AI bubble bursting, I wouldn't count on that changing for a while yet. So there may also never be a cheaper time to get a Switch 2 than right now, especially when we know the price of the console will go up in just a couple months.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/release/en/2026/260508.html

I love it, I've played mine pretty much daily since launch. The exclusives have ranged from good to great for me so I'm getting a lot out of it. It's better than the Switch 1 in basically every way unless you have an OLED. The Switch 2 editions of games feel pretty substantial compared to Switch 1 performance, most notably BOTW and TOTK. More and more companies are making Switch 2 versions of 3rd party games for it as well which is nice. If you're gonna play a lot of stuff on it, it's worth it. If you want to play it more casually like a lot of folks did with like a Switch lite, that's a lot harder to recommend. I will say that if you like cozy style games or really enjoy old Pokemon, Pokopia is so good it almost makes it worth it on it's own.

I love the Switch 2 and MKW has been the single biggest disappointment as far as exclusives go. I genuinely think MK8 is better. But there are several other exclusives that are much better at justifying a Switch 2 purchase. Pokopia, DK, and Kirby Air Riders just to name a few.

If you don't own a Switch at all, then I'd say definitely grab one, you'll have a pretty big back catalog of S1 titles to catch up on. Even for legacy content, performance will be better on S2, and you'll be future proof for future games, so I would advise getting S2 over S1.

If you already own a S1, upgrading really depends on how much you want new first party games. I bought it for Kirby Air Riders and that alone was well worth the price for me after waiting 22 years for that sequel.

Ordinarily I'd say if you're not that interested in the current lineup you can always wait until games you really want come out, but with the economy being fucked it's possible there may be additional price increases in the future. So if you're at all considering it, I think it's best to grab one sooner rather than later. I'm half joking when I say I bought mine for Kirby Air Riders, I was also just nervous about tariffs, and I made the right call locking my purchase in at the launch price.

What? Its purpose is to play Switch 2 games. Same as any platform.

I don't own a switch 2.

I think it might be worth it if you're planning to buy one eventually, just because we know there will be another price increase and it will never be cheaper going forward than it is right now.

I agree with the others about the pros and cons if you don't already own a switch 1, and perhaps if you don't own any other consoles and gaming computers (because at that point I think tech spec wise the switch 2 is a pretty good bargain when you can't get a steam deck and the price of other consoles has risen so high).

But I also think it's worth noting that this depends on if you actually want to play nintendos first party titles.