Nintendo has had a quality control issue since the beginning of the Nintendo Switch in more ways than one. They provide evidence of their quality issues currently and inform us of possible issues or improvements in the future. Switch owners already know of the infamous hardware and software issues of the console; the biggest example being Joy-Con drift. Currently, a lot of us are seeing the limitations of the console on running games. Releases like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Mario and Luigi: Brothership suffer technical issues that greatly affect gameplay. Nintendo is aware of this, offering free repairs for Joy-Cons and already providing an incoming Nintendo Switch 2 patch to improve Echoes of Wisdom. These make Nintendo’s quality control during the Switch’s eight-year life cycle more relevant than before.
Because of the popularity of the Switch and its catalog, it is easy to miss the long trend of quality issues. The hardware issue isn’t only centered around the Joy-Cons, neither is the software issue centered around newer releases. There is a decline in content across the Switch’s life, that can be seen within longer running series. The beginnings of the Switch actually give some context to this, especially with the circumstances of its development.
Background
The Nintendo Switch was produced quickly to overcome their failure with the Wii U. In fact, the system concept was finalized and development started just a year after the release of the Wii U. This meant the hardware the Switch released was weak and out-of-date during the time of its launch. The way they developed games changed: instead of having some of their developers work on their home consoles while others worked on their handheld-only consoles, they merged the teams together. I think this is where the quality issues actually began, due to timing and having not-so-great hardware.
When you mix in third party publishers, then the results vary, since Nintendo has less control. So, with great games like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, we also get games with either lackluster content or problems with performance. If several teams had to quickly pump out games, all at once, while porting games that failed commercially on the WII U and have it all packaged for the rushed Nintendo Switch console: is it hard to believe the games themselves will suffer?
Hardware Issues
Arguably the largest factor of the quality control issue is the hardware. Everyone who has a Switch is familiar with Joy-Con drift, an issue that persists, to the point of legal troubles. Joy-Con drift means that the Switch was made utterly unusable. Drift isn’t exclusive to the Joy-Cons either: users such as I experienced drift on our Nintendo Switch Pro Controllers. I myself had to repair or replace three pairs of Joy-Cons and two pro controllers.
This isn’t the extent of the hardware issue; it extends to the efficiency of the system. This was seen in its low battery life at launch. This inefficiency was made extremely obvious a few years after the initial launch. Nintendo released a revised version of the Switch that had nearly double the battery life of the original Switch. These issues point out the hardware as one of the biggest flaws, proving how rushed the console was.
Software Issues
The problems with software seem to be the current conversation of the flaws, since the hardware issue has died down. The sales numbers proved customers don’t care about how “weak” the console is as long as it provides good gaming. The most blatantly poor performances, however, are The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Pokémon Violet/Pokémon Scarlet. Both are littered with frame rate drops, stuttering and sometimes even crashing completely. Pokémon previously released lackluster titles, so it was expected that the newer games would fare better, yet they turned out even worse.
As a products-based company that had touted the “Official Nintendo Seal of Quality,”, Nintendo should control what is published. The company used to make sure games release with a decent quality, but they just haven’t been doing that recently. Since the release of the Switch in 2017, third-party developers also contributed to this issue. Minecraft is at its technical worst on Switch. Games like Doom (2016), The Witcher 3 and Mortal Kombat 11 are completely visually downgraded. The Nintendo eShop is full of shovelware on top of being hard to navigate. Fortunately, most critically acclaimed games on the console are released with amazing performance. But the lack of regulation cautions if a game is worth getting, when it doesn’t have Mario or Zelda.
Quality of Content
One of the biggest unspoken issues is how the content compares to a series coupled by its price. The main offender in this console generation is the flood of remasters and ports including several Nintendo series and spinoffs. The full price of these games does not match the effort put in them, ultimately pricing unfairly.
Donkey Kong Country Returns was $20 (USD) as a Nintendo Select game and Luigi’s Mansion 2 was $40 on the 3DS—yet both of these games are $60 on the Switch! All for a bit of a resolution bump. There are so many examples of these that it might be something every Nintendo fan is familiar with. It could be said, in favor of Nintendo, that the hidden cost is the console being able to play these games on the go and giving life to older games—but is that really enough justification for a 50% price hike? Was it even necessary?
Lack of Content
Aside from the numerous ports, Nintendo has also lacked content in its newer entries of some long-running series. WarioWare, a series that contains several fun minigames continued to get several new entries since its introduction. The two new entries on Switch are $50 dollars each, but both feel like they have the weakest content. Other examples include Nintendo Switch Sports, only having a lot of content after several updates. The Mario sports games are known as some of the most unimpressive releases on Switch. The Mario Party series finally returned to form but still failed to add new content that doesn’t reuse old content.
Even The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was received by many to be an arguably inferior game to 2017 Game of the Year, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As the cherry on top, Tears of the Kingdom was the first of Nintendo’s games to raise its price to $70 dollars, being the only Nintendo game to do so on the Switch, only to be a disappointment to some.
Opinions will differ on whether these inconsistencies in quality are acceptable, though what cannot be denied is that quality control is now a bigger problem that before, affecting the next generation. Nintendo made it very difficult to distract from this with the recent controversy of Mario Kart World ballooning to $80. This is something that not even Microsoft or Sony has done with their premium gaming experiences. Nintendo will have to reckon with it. What remains up in the air is: how will Nintendo deal with the issue? How will the situation change in the Switch 2 generation?
Forecasting the Nintendo Switch 2 Generation
Most of the clues lie in the hardware of the Nintendo Switch 2, being plainly more powerful than the original Switch, as noted by directors in their “Ask the Developer Vol. 16” interview on the Nintendo website:
“The Switch 2 system’s improved processor performance has allowed us to realize new types of gameplay that haven’t been seen before…You could say that one of the key features of Switch 2 is its expanded processing capability, which has made these new gameplay experiences possible.”
—Kouichi Kawamoto, producer for Switch 2
Not only does this mean that games will have better performance (as suggested by free Switch 2 patches of Switch games), they will have the hardware capable of including more content that would befit a franchise. It is still possible to get another disappointing WarioWare entry, but this gives Nintendo’s developers a chance to make games better. I would expect bigger and better games from them. Third-party developers still seem like a hard sell for good quality, considering they are focused on ports. However, the Switch 2’s features changes things.
Switch 2 Technology
Firstly, the inclusion of ray tracing and DLSS means that developers have better tools to improve visual qualities. This is reflected in Street Fighter 6, shown to be better than the “next-gen” console, Xbox Series S. These tools are straight up next-gen hardware features. The other great aspect of the Switch 2 for developers are the Joy-Cons, now equipped with mouse controls.
Some Resident Evil games have already taken advantage of motion controls on the original switch. Mouse controls would add another layer to the game as seen with the launch title Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition. Not only does the game use motion controls, but it takes advantage of the Switch 2 specific features such as touch screen and VRR in its handheld mode, further proving that games can have a unique experience and quality.
The Nintendo “Premium”
Normally, I would be confident that Nintendo is obviously going to improve on their quality control with fewer limitations. Yet Nintendo has already given themselves a controversy. Everything is going in their favor, but the curse of being a Nintendo fan is that they have large blind spots. The price increase all around the incoming console has proven too difficult to overlook. Nintendo sees their products as premium—sure—so they hardly lower the prices of any of their games. But to release them at a higher price with little more than a graphical upgrade is very questionable. Their tech demo isn’t even free. Yeah, Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Mario Party Jamboree are getting new content—but at a $80 price point for newcomers. Even upgrading to the new Switch 2 edition version requires a $10 to $20 fee.
There is not nearly enough content, and therefore not enough quality to match these prices. Series like Monster Hunter have proven that paid expansion can drastically increase the quality of the overall game. Similarly, the improved editions of Atlus produced games such as Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance reiterate on the title with redefining qualities that make the game feel fresh. In my own experience, Nintendo hasn’t had a good history with expansions that seem unmissable. They either update the game to where they should be or add just a little bit on the top. These examples may feel a bit generic or misdirected, but they are relevant when it comes to scope.
Nintendo’s Hidden Message on Quality
Ordinarily, the higher the price, the more representative a game is of its ambition: that much is true with Tears of the kingdom, that has two additional layers of a map over the one in Breath of the Wild. It also expands on its mechanics and does more with its concepts than Breath of the Wild. It is commendable, and just tolerable enough to pay that extra $10 over the $60 of most of Nintendo’s gaming library. Unfortunately, what we see is the same effort, the same production time and a similar budget for games coming out on Switch 2 that are getting higher prices for similar amounts of content. Just because a system is more capable and lets you do what you meant to do already, doesn’t mean there is more effort made for the game—indie games have just as much if not more for a lower price.
That is seen with the viral indies, Stardew Valley and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, respectively with a $25 and $50 price point. What is being communicated with these price tags is not that these games are of “higher quality” and “bigger ambitions”: it is that they are expecting more from the customer for just the same quality as before. I say that with praise too: Nintendo games are of some of the highest quality and best efforts by their developers, because they truly care about their games. But it is an entirely different thing for us to believe that they are somehow doing more than before, and more than all of these great developers who provided the largest budgeted games, with longer development periods and a great game design philosophy—who all price their games, currently, at a maximum of $70.
