Nintendo’s Switch 2 Has the Handheld Market All to Itself
It’s lonely at the top — and the Japanese gaming giant will be more than happy to keep it that way.
Nintendo’s Switch 2 has the handheld market to itself.
Photographer: Richard A. Brooks/AFP/Getty Images
Eight years since the launch of Nintendo Co.’s original Switch, the new console is finally here, in stores Thursday and online Friday. To greet the Switch 2, the return of what I feel is a much-missed staple, there was a frenzied midnight launch. Reports the Guardian:
When the first Switch hit the market in 2017, rival console makers paid little attention. Nintendo was the walking wounded, reeling off the back of a highly disappointing Wii U, which sold a mere 13.6 million units, an extreme disappointment after 100 million in sales of the groundbreaking Wii. Its choice to separate from the pack, to not create a traditional home console to compete with Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox and Sony Group Corp.’s PlayStation, was seen as an admission of having fallen behind.