Earlier this month, Nintendo received a lot of negative attention for an end-user license agreement (EULA) update granting the company the claimed right to render Switch consoles "permanently unusable in whole or in part" for violations such as suspected hacking or piracy. As it turns out, though, Nintendo isn't the only console manufacturer that threatens to remotely brick systems in response to rule violations. And attorneys tell Ars Technica that they're probably well within their legal rights to do so.
Sony's System Software License Agreement on the PS5, for instance, contains the following paragraph of "remedies" it can take for "violations" such as use of modified hardware or pirated software (emphasis added).
If SIE Inc determines that you have violated this Agreement's terms, SIE Inc may itself or may procure the taking of any action to protect its interests such as disabling access to or use of some or all System Software, disabling use of this PS5 system online or offline, termination of your access to PlayStation Network, denial of any warranty, repair or other services provided for your PS5 system, implementation of automatic or mandatory updates or devices intended to discontinue unauthorized use, or reliance on any other remedial efforts as reasonably necessary to prevent the use of modified or unpermitted use of System Software.
The same exact clause appears in the PlayStation 4 EULA as well. The PlayStation 3 EULA was missing the "disabling use... online or offline" clause, but it does still warn that Sony can take steps to "discontinue unauthorized use" or "prevent the use of a modified PS3 system, or any pirated material or equipment."
When Nintendo took the wraps off the Switch 2 in early April, it announced that around a dozen first-party Switch games would be getting free updates that would add some Switch 2-specific benefits to older games running on the new console. We could safely assume that these updates wouldn't be as extensive as the $10 and $20 paid upgrade packs for games like Breath of the Wild or Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but Nintendo's page didn't initially provide any game-specific details.
Earlier this week, Nintendo updated its support page with more game-by-game details about what players of these older games can expect on the new hardware. The baseline improvement for most games is "improved image quality" and optimizations for the Switch 2's built-in display, but others include support for GameShare multiplayer, support for the new Joy-Cons' mouse controls, support for HDR TVs, and other tweaks.
The most significant of the announced updates are frame rate improvements for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the main-series Pokémon games released in late 2022. Most latter-day Switch games suffered from frame rate dips here and there, as newer games outstripped the capabilities of a low-power tablet processor that had already been a couple of years old when the Switch launched in 2017. But the Pokémon performance problems were so pervasive and widely commented-upon that Nintendo released a rare apology promising to improve the game post-release. Subsequent patches helped somewhat but could never deliver a consistently smooth frame rate; perhaps new hardware will finally deliver what software patches couldn't.
US preorders for the Nintendo Switch 2 console went live at Best Buy, Target, and Walmart at midnight Eastern time last night (though the rush of orders caused problems and delays across all three retailers' websites). The console listings came with a wave of other retail listings for games and accessories, and those listings either fill small gaps in our knowledge about Switch 2 game packaging and pricing or confirm facts that were previously implied.
First, $80 Switch 2 games like Mario Kart World will not cost $90 as physical releases. This is worth repeating over and over again because of how pernicious the rumors about $90 physical releases have been; as recently as this morning, typing "Switch 2 $90" into Google would show you videos, Reddit threads, news posts, and even Google's own AI summaries all confidently and incorrectly proclaiming that physical Switch 2 releases will cost $90 when they actually won't.
Google's AI-generated search summary about $90 Switch 2 games as of this morning.
Credit:
Andrew Cunningham
While physical game releases in the European Union sometimes cost more than their digital counterparts, there was actually no indication that US releases of physical games would cost $90. The Mario Kart World website listed an $80 MSRP from the start, as did early retail listings that were published before preorders actually began, and this price didn't change when Nintendo increased accessory pricing in response to import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
Guests play with the new Nintendo Switch 2 video game console system during the worldwide presentation in Paris on April 2.
Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP
Nintendo set a date for Switch 2 pre-orders in the US and apologized for a previous delay.
The gaming giant isn't hiking the price of the game console for now but is increasing accessory prices.
Nintendo said the higher prices were due to "changes in market conditions."
Nintendo gave an update to its American customers on Friday — and it's a good news/bad news situation.
The good news: The company isn't raising the price of the Switch 2 game console (for now).
The bad news: The extra accessories that many shoppers buy alongside the game console, such as controllers, are getting more expensive.
"Retail pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 will begin on April 24, 2025. At launch, the price for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will remain as announced on April 2 at $449.99, and the Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle will remain as announced at $499.99," the company said on Friday.
"However, Nintendo Switch 2 accessories will experience price adjustments from those announced on April 2 due to changes in market conditions," Nintendo added. The company published a full pricing list, which you can view here.
Nintendo is also keeping the door open to future price hikes, including for the Switch 2.
"Other adjustments to the price of any Nintendo product are also possible in the future depending on market conditions," it said.
The much-anticipated update arrives after Nintendo found itself in a tough spot. The same day that it announced preorder pricing for the Switch 2, President Donald Trump unveiled his "Liberation Day" tariffs, which impacted the countries that manufacture Nintendo's game consoles.
Nintendo decided to pause US preorders, originally scheduled to begin on April 9, to "assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions."
Nintendo apologized for the delay in its Friday update and said it hopes its release of the pricing details "reduces some of the uncertainty our customers may be experiencing."
Laura Gassner Otting, an executive coach, advises taking control of work aspects you can manage.
If you're motivated to find a new job but don't know if it's the right time, assess your stress.
It could be the right time if you get the Sunday Scaries or have had a change in life circumstances.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Laura Gassner Otting, a career expert and executive coach in Boston. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I'm a career expert, executive coach, and the author of three books about career satisfaction and workforce engagement.
In the current economy, with looming fears of layoffs, workers are favoring stability over upward mobility. Rather than seeking greener pastures elsewhere, they want to improve their current working environment.
When it feels like layoffs are lurking around every corner, it's easy to think the best thing you can do is keep your head down and hope no one notices you.
The truth is, now is the time to step up — not step back — and take ownership of the parts of your work you can control.
I started my career at one of the best search firms in the country
I worked at Isaacson Miller for five years. One day, I realized I could do this work better and faster, with more profit for us and less cost for our clients. My boss didn't agree, so I quit.
In 2002, I founded Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, a global executive search firm, and started calling highly successful people to recruit them. We found them by calling industry leaders across fields and asking for recommendations for shining stars. The recruits called us back because they were successful but weren't happy in their roles.
In my experience, everyone always wonders if there is something better out there. Recruiting firms would've gone out of business long ago if this weren't the case.
I sold that search firm to the team of women who helped me build it in 2016.
Money is not the only consideration for people wanting a new job
Many people think the top consideration for jumping ship is money, but in my more than two decades of experience, I've found that's not the case.
In recruiting, we say there are about eight motivating factors that will inspire anyone, anywhere, at any time to consider taking a new job:
Money
Mission
Leadership
Challenge
Scope of impact
Acquisition of new skills
Prestige
Personal needs
In research I spearheaded through Limitless Assessment, with more than 7,000 responses from people in 74 countries, only 36.7% said that money is the most important factor in determining their happiness at work.
If you'remotivated to find a new jobbased on one or more of those eight factors but are unsure if it's the right time, there are indicators that you need to make a move now.
Here are the top reasons people should leave a job for a new opportunity
1. You're exhausted at the end of every day
If your boss, colleagues, or clients are draining you of energy, it's a good sign that they aren't bringing out the best version of you but the one constantly feeling stressed and defensive. If that's the case, odds are that you aren't doing your best work, and your career will eventually stagnate.
Our research found that almost all of us want work to be part of what inspires us to get out of bed every morning. If you start to get depressed on Sunday evenings, that's not happening for you.
3. You're making your need-to-make number but not even approaching a plan to get to your want-to-make number
Your need-to-make number is what it costs, at minimum, to afford the life that you have now, while your want-to-make number includes going out for meals, taking a vacation, and other expenses.
4. There's greater potential available for you beyond your current role
Feeling boxed into narrow responsibilities can be frustrating. One client of mine stepped in for a last-minute presentation to her Fortune 100 company board and discovered she loved being onstage. Realizing she wanted a public-facing leadership role, she left her current company when it couldn't offer one, joining a competitor where she could pursue her ambitions.
5. There's a shift in your life circumstances
A startup founder who once thrived on long hours and intense work had a change in priorities after the birth of his daughter. Wanting to be more present at home, he sought a job with better work-life balance and financial stability.
6. You feel unseen in your current role
Another client felt her contributions were undervalued and overshadowed by a louder colleague. When her boss didn't address the imbalance, she left for a new job where the recruitment process and a significant pay increase made her feel more appreciated and valued.
Don't let other people decide what success is for you
The most common mistake I see in my line of work is people judging their current definition of success by the outdated definitions handed to them by other people. While they may be filling in all the checkboxes, they still feel empty.
You can't be insatiably hungry for someone else's goals, so you will never work hard enough for the achievement that belongs to someone else's success. This always leads to boredom, disengagement, and career stagnation.
The myopic, one-size-fits-all, fastest, and most expedient path to the corner office is the old definition of success, but today, there are innumerable ways to work that align with who we want to be, not just what we've been told we have to be.
Nintendo's barrage of Switch announcements over the last two weeks have also come with changes to the way Nintendo treats physical and digital copies of games.
Digital games can now become "virtual game cards," facilitating slightly more flexible sharing of digitally purchased games between multiple Switch systems owned by the same person or family of people. And physical copies of games can now be either traditional game cards—little bits of plastic with the game stored on a flash memory chip inside—or "Game-Key cards," which look the same from the outside but don't actually have any game data stored on them.
A Game-Key card has a "key" stored on it that prompts a download of the game data from Nintendo's servers the first time you insert it. From then on, the game behaves like a cross between a digital download and a physical game—all of the game's content has to be on the console's internal storage or a microSD Express card, but you need to have the Game-Key card inserted before the game will launch.
Nintendo said it will delay US preorders of the Switch 2 to investigate the impacts of tariffs.
Nintendo
Nintendo will delay US preorders of the Switch 2 due to the potential impacts of recent tariffs.
The company said US-based customers won't be able to order it from April 9 as previously planned but a June 5 console launch date remains.
A new date for preorders has not yet been determined, per a company statement shared with BI.
Bad news, gamers — you're going to have to wait a bit longer to preorder the Nintendo Switch 2.
Nintendo has blamed Trump's tariffs for a delay in when Americans can preorder its highly anticipated Switch 2 game console.
The company is pushing back preorders from April and will announce the new preorder date "at a later date," per a company statement shared with Business Insider.
"Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions," the statement read. "Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged."
Previously, Nintendo said that North American customers would be able to preorder from "participating retailers" on April 9. The company also had plans to allow preorders directly from its website starting May 8, but the statement didn't say whether this date was also subject to change.
Nintendo said it still plans to launch the Switch 2 on June 5, with a price of $449.99.
The company previously moved some production of its original Switch from China to Vietnam due to economic tensions between China and the US.
This week, Vietnam was hit with a 46% reciprocal tariff, while China saw a 34% reciprocal tariff.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Nintendo is delaying preorders for the newly announced Switch 2 in the U.S. due to concerns around President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Preorders will no longer begin on April 9. “Preorders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025, in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market […]
In the wake of the Switch 2 reveal, neither Nintendo nor Nvidia has gone into any detail at all about the exact chip inside the upcoming handheld—technically, we are still not sure what Arm CPU architecture or what GPU architecture it uses, how much RAM we can expect it to have, how fast that memory will be, or exactly how many graphics cores we're looking at.
But interviews with Nintendo executives and a blog post from Nvidia did at least confirm several of the new chip's capabilities. The "custom Nvidia processor" has a GPU "with dedicated [Ray-Tracing] Cores and Tensor Cores for stunning visuals and AI-driven enhancements," writes Nvidia Software Engineering VP Muni Anda.
This means that, as rumored, the Switch 2 will support Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) upscaling technology, which helps to upscale a lower-resolution image into a higher-resolution image with less of a performance impact than native rendering and less loss of quality than traditional upscaling methods. For the Switch games that can render at 4K or at 120 FPS 1080p, DLSS will likely be responsible for making it possible.
Among the changes mentioned in yesterday's Nintendo Switch 2 presentation was a note that the new console doesn't just support MicroSD Express cards for augmenting the device's 256GB of internal storage, but it requires MicroSD Express. Whatever plentiful, cheap microSD card you're using in your current Switch, including Sandisk's Nintendo-branded ones, can't migrate over to your Switch 2 alongside all your Switch 1 games.
MicroSD Express, explained
Why is regular-old MicroSD no longer good enough? It all comes down to speed.
Most run-of-the-mill SD and microSD cards you can buy today are using some version of the Ultra High Speed (UHS) standard. Designed to augment the default speed (12.5MB/s) and high speed (25MB/s) from the earliest versions of the SD card standard, the three UHS versions enable data transfers of up to 624MB/s.
Nintendo's Switch 2 presentation gave us pricing for the console ($449 to start) and Nintendo's product pages have given us pricing information for accessories ($80 for a Pro Controller, $90 for another pair of Joy-Cons, and $110 for a replacement dock, sheesh). But what Nintendo didn't mention during the presentation was game pricing, either for standalone Switch 2 titles or the Switch 2 Edition upgrades for existing Switch games.
Nintendo announced via its website after the presentation that Mario Kart World, the console's flagship launch title, will cost $50 when you buy a digital copy as part of a Switch 2 bundle. But the game will cost $80 when you buy it on its own, $30 more than the pack-in version and $20 more than the usual $60 price for first-party Switch games.
Pre-order listings at US retailers that have gone live since this morning also list several $80 games—we'll use Wal-Mart's as an example. The upgraded Switch 2 Editions for a trio of Switch games—2024's Super Mario Party Jamboree, 2023's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and 2022's Kirby and the Forgotten Land—are all going for $80, the same as Mario Kart World.
I don't think anybody outside Nintendo or FromSoftware was expecting a spiritual successor to Bloodborne to be one of the titles announced at the Nintendo Switch 2's launch today. Not just "playable" on the Switch 2, but exclusive to it. But there it was, The Duskbloods, debuting its dread horror action just a few minutes before the luminously pink and puffy Kirby Air Ride 2.
The Switch 2's launch titles, and other announced games, are quite the rich stew. Here are some of the AAA ports, exclusives, and unexpectedly gruesome games arriving on the just-announced system.
Switch exclusives, including Nintendo’s own
Riding it like he stole it (in 2003).
Credit:
Nintendo
We'll get to FromSoftware's surprising Switch 2 exclusive in a bit. Far less surprising is a new Mario Kart game, as Mario Kart 8 sold more than 67 million copies, covering more than 40 percent of all Switches sold. Mario Kart World goes big, with 24 simultaneous players, and the ability to explore off the course in a kind of open-world setting.
We've known for a few months now that the Nintendo Switch 2 will support backward compatibility for older Nintendo Switch games, and as of today's presentation, we also know that some Switch games will get special Switch 2 Editions that add new features and support higher resolutions and other features.
Nintendo's product pages for the Switch add more details, including the status of backward-compatibility testing for original Switch games and a small handful of first-party Switch games that will get "free updates" to enhance them for Switch 2.
First, some good news. There will be a second tier of updates for original Switch games that Nintendo says "may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare in select games." These won't include the extra features or higher resolutions of Switch 2 Edition games, but they'll be available for free, and they ought to improve playability. Nintendo lists a dozen first-party Switch games that will benefit from free Switch 2 updates:
In a highly anticipated Nintendo Direct presentation this morning, the company revealed new information about the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware and software ahead of a newly announced June 5, 2025, release date. The system will be available on its own or in a bundle with Mario Kart World, for $449 and $499, respectively.
<em>Mario Kart World</em> taking off.
Credit:
Nintendo
The presentation led off with an extended look at a new exclusive launch title, Mario Kart World, which features 24 racers at once on "various regions across the globe" where "you can drive off the race track and go virtually anywhere" in a new "free roam" mode. Characters were shown doing jumps off of walls and wearing multiple different costumes. A new level themed after the original Donkey Kong featured prominently, as did one reminiscent of the Hyrule Castle level of Super Smash Bros. You can also go on "scenic drives with friends" and take photos with them in a new photo mode.
Switch 2 Editions of classic games, purchased as "Upgrade Packs" for original owners.
Credit:
Nintendo
Certain original Switch games will be re-released in new "Switch 2" editions that add new features and improved visuals. In the Switch 2 edition of Mario Party Jamboree, for instance, players will be able to take part in mouse- and camera-controlled games. And Switch 2 Editions of the two Switch Zelda games will allow access to a new smartphone-powered note-taking feature.
With its planned Switch 2 Direct presentation scheduled for Wednesday morning, Nintendo is set to finally fully pull back the curtain on a console we've been speculating about for years now. We'll have plenty of reporting and analysis of whatever Nintendo announces in the days to come. In the meantime, though, we thought it would be fun to put down a marker on some of the key announcements we expect Nintendo to make tomorrow.
Rather than limiting ourselves to a single prediction, though, we've broken things down into increasingly outlandish categories of "Likely," "Possible," and "Implausible." Consider this an exercise in expectation-setting for one of the most important moments in Nintendo's recent history, and be sure to let us know what you think will happen in the comments section below.
Price
Yen per US dollar, charted.
Credit:
MacroTrends
Likely: A $399 MSRP would reflect some of the eight years of inflation that Nintendo has seen in the (seemingly unmovable) $299 price of the original Switch. That price point would also put the Switch 2 at rough parity with the market-proven price point of the (older, non-portable) Xbox Series X and PS5.
