I Like the Old Switch Better
March 20, 2026
It's already been said enough times to last us until the heat death of the universe, but the Switch 1's joycon rails feel right--so right that Nintendo made that click the loadbearing pillar of their marketing through the entire life-cycle of the platform. Every Direct, every YouTube ad, every trailer on the eShop opens with that little click. It's the kind of thing that takes a zillion engineering hours to perfect but once it's in the hands there's nothing to it but to just bask in its simple usability. Slide and click. Button to unclick.
I think I should have known that the Switch 2 and I weren't gonna be pals when the first thing that happened after I got it out of the box was I got my thumb caught between the screen and the new-and-improved joycon 2 magnetic boogaloo as both parties submitted to their mutual attraction.
But hey, first impressions aren't everything. Let me get my hand uncaught and grip the thing with both my mitts. The Switch 1 feels better in the hands. It's just small enough, just light enough. It's winning no prizes for ergonomics, and those directional buttons are goofy. But I can romp around in Hyrule like this for a few hours. Totally cool.
The Switch 2 does not feel good in the hands. It's almost twice the weight (534g) of the Switch 1 (297g) and the joycons are half an inch taller. It's within spitting distance of the Steam Deck's heft (669g) with none of the concessions to ergonomics. I feel like I'm holding the inevitable terminal point of Nintendo's design carcinization from a box with buttons you throw in the backseat to a cornerless, thrumming object of dread that inflicts the cycle of carcinization anew upon the pair of hands that touch it.
And it doesn't even play Armored Core.
Let's talk for a minute about design. The late and celebrated WonderSwan inventor Gunpei Yokoi had an oft-quoted design philosophy called Lateral Thinking with the Piece of Shit You Have to Hand. This is how we got the Game Boy--give me a second to fetch mine from the backseat so I can apprise it proper. It boasts a piss-coloured screen with a viewing angle tolerance of roughly half a degree. It also lasts thirty hours on a single set of batteries and outsold Thriller. Technically this philosophy is also how we got the Virtual Boy, but everybody is entitled to a mulligan, and the WonderSwan kicked ass.
The Switch 1 is the Piece of Shit Nintendo Had to Hand. After the Wii U imploded half a hardware cycle early, Nintendo had to get something out the door pronto. After punting out two miniature plug-and-plays to stall for time, neither of which included Chrono Trigger, they yanked the APU out of Nvidia's flagging Apple TV also-ran, slapped on a screen, ported Zelda and Mario Kart, and pushed it out of the nest. It flew.
For what it is, the Switch 1 is powerful enough. Don't get me wrong: I have heard from people who know better than me that if you're downporting from current gen PC or even PS4 you're having a bad time. I hear you. At the same time, Nintendo hasn't been playing seriously on that front since the GameCube. The Switch 1 plays Mario Kart 8 on the go at sixty frames and native screen resolution, and I challenge you to find a nicer looking game in 2026 current date. Yes, even the new Mario Kart.
Conversely, the Switch 2 is not powerful enough. I do not know the specs and I'm not going to look them up right now, but I am confident in my guesstimate that it can run laps around the Switch 1. This does not matter. The industry standard rendering pipelines a decade out from the original Switch are all a billion times more expensive for no good god damned reason, and the the Switch 2 cannot keep up with all the new bullshit without resorting to half-baked supersampled framegen fakery. My Switch 1 games get a nice little performance bump, but the new games are all different degrees of gasping for oxygen in a chassis that can't move air fast enough to keep the console "lap-safe". Xenoblade X looks worse on Switch 2. I can have Pokemon Scarlet at 1440p and Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p: cool. But as soon as I walk in front of a display of in-world scrolling text that the DLSS disembowels into a trail of pixelated entrails, the gig is up.
Is that elitist? Deep down I know that this hate parade is hypocritical as well as hyperbolic. My move to the new platform was foretold by the half-dozen times I've done this before. This is where the new games are. This is where the party's at, and I accepted the invite. I'm just being mean because this is the first time in a quarter century that Nintendo has given up on going goofy and instead just gave us a 2. Understood.
But I also know something more fundamental has gone wrong because I never want to lift the Switch 2 from its wobbly pedestal. When I do, my fingers are never sure of their grip upon its ethereal curves and I am fearful that I will drop it. Instead I think of those little neon joycons on the old one with their perfect click and their absolutely fucked sticks and then I catch myself feeling the buzz of nostalgia for a device that is not even a decade old and that's how I know for certain that I have lost the plot and Nintendo has lost the whole book.
This is how I've gaslit myself into a retroactive glaze-by-backhanded compliments for the most commercially successful hardware platform since the PS2. Since last time I checked Nintendo isn't cutting me cheques to be a Ring Fit Adventure spokeperson with two thousand consecutive days of exercise on the odometer, I'll go ahead and add that Dolphin can emulate the GameCube better, Gary Bowser should not be in debtor's prison, and that wheelchair basketball game was tacky.
I can't say with complete certainty that this is how I felt in 2017, but the old Switch has matured into something I'm comfortable calling Everyday Tech. There's probably a dash of global north bullshit in the mix there, but for me the Switch 1 is tech you take with you, that can stand up to being knocked around, that accumulates scuffs and dents like the little badges of honour that they ought to be. Slap a decent screen protector on the one surface that matters and you're good to go.
The Switch 2 does not feel that way. I could check the manufacturing materials or watch an iFixit teardown. I could look up the YouTuber who makes his living meancing consumer tech with box cutters and pocket lighters, and maybe that would codify my claims, but it really isn't about any of that. The Switch 2 is not Everyday Tech because it costs seven hundred dollars in my local currency after tax and if I drop the one I have a little too hard on the sidewalk it will probably be a good long while before I can get another one.
At least the storage prices haven't really gone up. Apparently Nintendo went so niche with MicroSD Express that not even data centres have a place to plug them into the Contraption. Small wins.