Good that Nintendo lost the lawsuit. They should have to compete. But honestly everyone in here calling for Nintendo to port their games to PC is being ridiculous. Nintendo as a company would be stupid as hell to ever do that. As soon as you can buy their stuff on steam, there is immediately no reason to ever purchase their hardware.
Microsoft was the perfect example of this. Xbox embraced putting their games on PC and it was one of the worst mistakes they ever made. It’s one of the biggest reasons Xbox is on life support right now. Nintendo doing that would basically be suicide. As nice as it would be for them to do it, it will never ever happen as long as they still make hardware.
It’s one of the biggest reasons Xbox is on life support right now.
The series of terrible decisions began with the X1: “You can watch netflix! You can watch youtube! You can’t share or sell your games! Kinect is mandatory for us to monitor you 24/7!” - M$ made the perfect advertisement for the PS4. Their complete lack of creativity with console naming didn’t help either, it was worse than Wii -> WiiU. Xbox One ~> Xbox One S/X -> Xbox Series S/X
Then there’s M$ buying several big studios and having no fucking clue how to best use them. Everyone who saw how they treated Rare knew that was coming.
Alos, because they’re a corporate first company, everything that “works” for M$Office ends up being applied to everything else. No more ownership, only subscription renting! Going all in on subs (xbox live) meant they had to widen their market, so increasing reach to PC and other consoles was the best option for increasing subscribers. That they didn’t care at all about how that’d hurt their own fucking specialized gaming hardware was no surprise.
What I’m actually surprised is that they haven’t rammed Copilot into any of their games or Xbox subscriptions yet.
Yeah, these are all the other big reasons. I think they were planning on shoving copilot into Xbox. But they saw it was deeply unpopular on Windows and actually pulled back on the idea. I guess they were the broken clock on that one.
Microsoft (and Sony) have done a terrible job of understanding the console market.
They sell consoles so they can loss-leader you into making it up on licensed games.
You buy a console so you can get a canned consistent experience for less than a PC. In the past, it was also for bespoke hardware that could do something a random PC couldn’t easily and exclusive titles.
In 2026, these advantages are gone. Since Xbone/PS4, you’re just looking at a standard AMD desktop in a funny box. It comes in too many flavours with real performance differences. Only a few titles are still exclusive. You can spend $500 and still not have the Best Console Experience, so why not spend $700 for a PC?
Of course Xbox and PS are flailing in that market.
Nintendo hardware avoids those pitfalls. There’s no “Switch 2 Pro” scenario where some games are meaningfully jankier. The hardware is profitable, and it’s still comfortably less than a basic dGPU computer. So there’s still a niche for it below the full gaming PC buyer.
They’ve also been more willing to exploit “we control the hardware and software together” opportunities for only-here experiences. Since the Kinect died, has there been a major gameplay paradigm that required an Xbox or PS to deliver?
Nintendo could port games to the PC but they won’t exploit the detachable controllers or portable aspects of a Switch, so many of the ports would be lesser.
my nephews just built low-mid end gaming PCs and both their setups came up around $1500, no idea where you are getting this $700 figure for in 2025/26. Their low/mid CPU and GPU alone was well over $500.
That doesn’t sound low-mid to us, but maybe we’re Just Poor™. Our CPU was like $100 and our GPU was like $250, used (only used part in the whole build). All told, maybe $600? It’s not a very fancy computer. It’d certainly cost WAY more now though, with the explosion of prices.
Totally! Plays pretty much everything we throw at it, except for one not-really-optimized indie UE5 game that’s borderline (which is probably partially the game’s fault, they improved optimization quite a bit since launch and it runs significantly better now but still not stellar, 30fps at most, but it’s playable; everything else runs just fine, generally solidly 60+).
A handheld and highly integrated device where games released for are basically guaranteed to run still has some appeal over the wide sea of PC s. Especially since the share of handheld PCs like the Steam Deck is still comparably small.
I’d also argue that one can get more customers by supporting PC due to those who wouldn’t buy a console anyway. It sounds reasonable though that the incentive for buying a console is gone if you already have a sufficient PC where you can play the game on.
But I wonder whether this is really the case. Do we have actual numbers from market studies or alike on this?
Then went back. They kept that reputation because they now hide all those numbers. But the 3DS tried that and was so expensive that no one was buying it. After a price cut, that some speculate went into a heavy loss, it became the best sold handheld that generation. The Wii U was also unclear whether it was sold at a loss or not. The Switch and S2 are probably sold exactly at cost.
Then went back with not trying to target high end with the original switch, with everyone complaining that it was equivalent to a mid phone of the year
I usually detest exclusive releases, as it feels anticonsumer to make people use a console/UI that they don’t like in order to have a chance of buying/playing a game they might like, but I’ve recently thought about a good copiumcoded excuse for it: Exclusives incentivise me to not keep all my games with one supplier, so when one corporation inevitably crosses a moral line that I cannot accept, I don’t have to sacrifice all my purchased games licences.
That and I honestly believe that owning games developed initially for x platform, on that platform, usually results in the best experience. Usually.
People who like handhelds will buy handhelds. People who like consoles and people who like PCs will buy PC. It is stupid to lock software to one specific type of hardware.
Instead they should force you to destructively collect a bunch of rare earth minerals and plastics and throw them all in the dump after a few years. It just makes sense!
Game exclusives are, by a given measure, anti-consumer; in the same way that charging consumers for games is. It is honestly a very effective way of building up a gaming community world.
We just okay it when we like the contender. No one faulted Valve for not bringing Half-Life elsewhere.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but it was often stated that Nintendo had enough cash reserves to operate at a loss for 50 years and still be fine.
Good that Nintendo lost the lawsuit. They should have to compete. But honestly everyone in here calling for Nintendo to port their games to PC is being ridiculous. Nintendo as a company would be stupid as hell to ever do that. As soon as you can buy their stuff on steam, there is immediately no reason to ever purchase their hardware.
Microsoft was the perfect example of this. Xbox embraced putting their games on PC and it was one of the worst mistakes they ever made. It’s one of the biggest reasons Xbox is on life support right now. Nintendo doing that would basically be suicide. As nice as it would be for them to do it, it will never ever happen as long as they still make hardware.
The series of terrible decisions began with the X1: “You can watch netflix! You can watch youtube! You can’t share or sell your games! Kinect is mandatory for us to monitor you 24/7!” - M$ made the perfect advertisement for the PS4. Their complete lack of creativity with console naming didn’t help either, it was worse than Wii -> WiiU. Xbox One ~> Xbox One S/X -> Xbox Series S/X
Then there’s M$ buying several big studios and having no fucking clue how to best use them. Everyone who saw how they treated Rare knew that was coming.
Alos, because they’re a corporate first company, everything that “works” for M$Office ends up being applied to everything else. No more ownership, only subscription renting! Going all in on subs (xbox live) meant they had to widen their market, so increasing reach to PC and other consoles was the best option for increasing subscribers. That they didn’t care at all about how that’d hurt their own fucking specialized gaming hardware was no surprise.
What I’m actually surprised is that they haven’t rammed Copilot into any of their games or Xbox subscriptions yet.
Yeah, these are all the other big reasons. I think they were planning on shoving copilot into Xbox. But they saw it was deeply unpopular on Windows and actually pulled back on the idea. I guess they were the broken clock on that one.
Microsoft (and Sony) have done a terrible job of understanding the console market.
They sell consoles so they can loss-leader you into making it up on licensed games.
You buy a console so you can get a canned consistent experience for less than a PC. In the past, it was also for bespoke hardware that could do something a random PC couldn’t easily and exclusive titles.
In 2026, these advantages are gone. Since Xbone/PS4, you’re just looking at a standard AMD desktop in a funny box. It comes in too many flavours with real performance differences. Only a few titles are still exclusive. You can spend $500 and still not have the Best Console Experience, so why not spend $700 for a PC?
Of course Xbox and PS are flailing in that market.
Nintendo hardware avoids those pitfalls. There’s no “Switch 2 Pro” scenario where some games are meaningfully jankier. The hardware is profitable, and it’s still comfortably less than a basic dGPU computer. So there’s still a niche for it below the full gaming PC buyer.
They’ve also been more willing to exploit “we control the hardware and software together” opportunities for only-here experiences. Since the Kinect died, has there been a major gameplay paradigm that required an Xbox or PS to deliver?
Nintendo could port games to the PC but they won’t exploit the detachable controllers or portable aspects of a Switch, so many of the ports would be lesser.
Not true look at that shitty pokemon game on switch one that ran like ass if you didn’t have the better switch. Pokemon Scarlet and violet.
my nephews just built low-mid end gaming PCs and both their setups came up around $1500, no idea where you are getting this $700 figure for in 2025/26. Their low/mid CPU and GPU alone was well over $500.
Their gpu is definitly not low end
PCPartPicker Part List
deleted by creator
That doesn’t sound low-mid to us, but maybe we’re Just Poor™. Our CPU was like $100 and our GPU was like $250, used (only used part in the whole build). All told, maybe $600? It’s not a very fancy computer. It’d certainly cost WAY more now though, with the explosion of prices.
– Frost
Can your PC game?
Totally! Plays pretty much everything we throw at it, except for one not-really-optimized indie UE5 game that’s borderline (which is probably partially the game’s fault, they improved optimization quite a bit since launch and it runs significantly better now but still not stellar, 30fps at most, but it’s playable; everything else runs just fine, generally solidly 60+).
– Frost
Definitely. It’ll run Stardew Valley and Rollercoaster Tycoon! I bet it’s even powerful enough to run Doom!
(Why is it that I spent way more than them on a gaming laptop in 2022 and I still mostly just play Stardew Valley?)
So your saying that not low even though guy bought it this year. And admit yours was purchased before the price on RAM and storage jumped.
Oh yeah, I missed the whole ‘bought this year’ bit and forgot to account for the price hikes. Might be comparable to our build then. Whoof.
– Frost
The trademarked poor are wealthy compared to just the regular poor. /s
A handheld and highly integrated device where games released for are basically guaranteed to run still has some appeal over the wide sea of PC s. Especially since the share of handheld PCs like the Steam Deck is still comparably small.
I’d also argue that one can get more customers by supporting PC due to those who wouldn’t buy a console anyway. It sounds reasonable though that the incentive for buying a console is gone if you already have a sufficient PC where you can play the game on.
But I wonder whether this is really the case. Do we have actual numbers from market studies or alike on this?
Also, consoles are historically loss leaders. Lose a little money on the console, but make it back with the margins on your games.
Could be that modern game studios have just gotten too expensive for that model to continue, though.
Nintendo was the only company that ditched the loss-leader thing after burning itself with the N64 and GameCube.
Then went back. They kept that reputation because they now hide all those numbers. But the 3DS tried that and was so expensive that no one was buying it. After a price cut, that some speculate went into a heavy loss, it became the best sold handheld that generation. The Wii U was also unclear whether it was sold at a loss or not. The Switch and S2 are probably sold exactly at cost.
Then went back with not trying to target high end with the original switch, with everyone complaining that it was equivalent to a mid phone of the year
I usually detest exclusive releases, as it feels anticonsumer to make people use a console/UI that they don’t like in order to have a chance of buying/playing a game they might like, but I’ve recently thought about a good copiumcoded excuse for it: Exclusives incentivise me to not keep all my games with one supplier, so when one corporation inevitably crosses a moral line that I cannot accept, I don’t have to sacrifice all my purchased
gameslicences.That and I honestly believe that owning games developed initially for x platform, on that platform, usually results in the best experience. Usually.
People who like handhelds will buy handhelds. People who like consoles and people who like PCs will buy PC. It is stupid to lock software to one specific type of hardware.
Instead they should force you to destructively collect a bunch of rare earth minerals and plastics and throw them all in the dump after a few years. It just makes sense!
It’s a dismal thing for me to say to people:
Game exclusives are, by a given measure, anti-consumer; in the same way that charging consumers for games is. It is honestly a very effective way of building up a gaming community world.
We just okay it when we like the contender. No one faulted Valve for not bringing Half-Life elsewhere.
They ported Half-Life to PS2. And the sequel was on everything.
This is what want. Nintendo not deserve to live after how they treat community.
The community you’re talking about is not their target audience and catering to them makes no sense.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but it was often stated that Nintendo had enough cash reserves to operate at a loss for 50 years and still be fine.
And that was before the Switch came out. I’m sure they’ll still be doing their thing in another 50 years.
So it would not suicide at all. Can not win all.