Is the Nintendo Switch 2 worth the £400 price tag? PETER HOSKIN says the answer is an emphatic yes... and reveals why
Nintendo Switch 2
Verdict: Joy redefined
The latest Nintendo console, the Switch 2, is finally here — and a question mark block hovers over it, just like the ones above Mario's head.
Is it worth the £395.99 asking price (or £429.99, when bundled with the new Mario Kart World)? In this economy, and with more powerful PlayStations and Xboxes available for less, that's quite an outlay.
I could make a financial argument for the Switch 2. Its predecessor, the original Switch, has been around for eight years now. If this new console has the same shelf life, that amounts to about £50 a year...or a pound a week. Most people's chocolate habits cost more.
But financial arguments are boring, when the Switch 2 is anything but.
Although this is mostly just a bigger, better Switch, it's bigger and better in exciting ways. The larger, higher-definition screen is tremendously good for handheld play. Its more powerful innards mean that it can handle some very visually demanding games, including Cyberpunk 2077, which is also available now.
It will come in two varieties: just the console and the console bundled with Mario Kart World. The former will cost £395.99 and the latter £429.99
Can the PS5 and Xbox Series X run these games even better? Yes. But a PC can run them even better again. And none have the easy, well, switchability of the Switch 2, which can move from your TV to your handbag in an instant. Technological domination isn't everything.
Then there are the Switch 2's innovations, like its new mouse mode. The detachable Joy-Con controllers can be laid on their sides and moved and clicked just like the mouse for your desktop computer. It adds to the sense that Nintendo has made the Swiss Army knife of consoles. Everything for all occasions.
The real draw, though, is the games. Neither the PlayStation nor the Xbox will ever get Mario Kart World, which is a loss for them. This first open-world entry in the madcap racing series is — much like the Switch 2 itself — an improvement on its already great predecessor.
And think of all the joys to come! A new Donkey Kong game in July, which looks as though it delivers on its hero's full destructive potential. Followed by, presumably, new Mario and Zelda releases in future. Get saving.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
37 minutes ago
- The Sun
Patsy Kensit admits real reason she turned down Real Housewives of London as full cast line-up is revealed
ACTRESS Patsy Kensit has revealed the real reason she turned down appearing on Real Housewives of London after being linked to joining the cast. Rumours were afloat that the legendary actress could be giving the London-based spin-off a go but she failed to be announced as part of the programme's cast for the Hayu original series. 4 4 4 Now, in an exclusive interview with The Sun, Patsy has confirmed that she was lined up be one of the Housewives but turned the programme down for a key reason. Speaking to The Sun at the British Soap Awards, where she presented one of the night's top prizes, Patsy revealed: "I did have a meeting with them. "I live in my little flat in West Hampstead with my cat. My sons have flown the nest. "I don't think my lifestyle would stand up to these women - I wouldn't fit with them. "But I'm a huge fan and I love the show. I think the whole franchise is just phenomenal. The Sun first revealed that Patsy had been in talks with show bosses earlier this year before the final cast for the UK's latest spin-off of the American franchise was revealed. "She's an exception worth making in this case." The full line-up was unveiled just days later with a slew of stars with A-list connections confirmed to be on the bill. Patsy Kensit faces heartache after a 'tumultuous' split from her property tycoon fiance Patric Cassidy Karen Loderick-Peace will be returning to the franchise having previously appeared on another UK spin-off of the show in 2020, The Real Housewives of Jersey. Millionaire mogul Amanda Cronin is also one of the six ladies alongside former Ladies of London star Juliet Angus. J-Lo's pal Panthea Parker and Bake Off: The Professionals star Nessie Welschinger will also be letting fans into their lavish lives. Aussie socialite and model, Juliet Mayhew, who now lives in London, completes the line-up.
Daily Mail
43 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Children could be banned from spending more than two hours on any one phone app and blocked from social media after 10pm in new anti-doomscrolling measures
The government is considering measures to ban children from spending more than two hours on any one mobile phone app at a time. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle is mulling a move to cap the amount of time per app youngsters can spend on their phone as part of a swathe of measures designed to reduce 'doomscrolling'. The package could also include preventing children from accessing social media apps, such as TikTok or Snapchat, after 10pm and during school hours. 'My approach will nail down some of the safety challenges that people face online, but also start to embrace those measures that deliver a much healthier life for children online,' Mr Kyle told the Mirror. 'That's what I want young people to have, a developmental safe and nourishing childhood online, just as we strive to for young people offline.' He is focused on exploring how curfews and restrictions on accessibility to apps as a starting point and is aware such measures may not solve the problem entirely. The MP for Hove and Portslade has reportedly held discussions with former and current employees of social media sites, who are open to the idea of preventing access to apps at night or during school. They are also said to be willing to restrict how long children can use an app for, by blocking access once they have reached a certain time limit. There have been suggestions this could be up to two hours. However, Mr Kyle has not yet made a decision on what age bracket these changes could apply to, according to The Mirror. He is also reportedly exploring raising the age at which children consent for their personal data to be processed by online sites. This currently applies to youngsters aged 13 and above, although ministers could raise this to 16. Mr Kyle has previously said that he has taken a keen interest in TikTok's recent introduction of various tools to limit screen time. These include a 10pm curfew for under-16s, which features the device screen being taken over and calming music played, although the tool can be dismissed to continue using the app. Another tool, Time Away, allows parents to set specific times that TikTok is available on their teen's devices. Children can request extra time to remain on the app, but their parents must approve it. Mr Kyle said he wanted to see evidence of how these tools are helping young people before implementing anything, but said he was especially interested in anything that will 'empower parents' to control how long their children are spending on social media platforms. Experts have long cited social media as a factor that can disrupt young people's sleep, relationships and socialisation skills. Data from the Millennium Cohort study, published last January, revealed 48 per cent of 16 to 18-year-olds felt they had lost control over how much time they spent online. A team at the University of Cambridge examined data from the study which tracks the lives of 19,000 Britons born in 2000-2002. When those in the cohort were aged between 16 and 18, they were asked about their social media use. The survey revealed 48 per cent of the 7,000 respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: 'I think I am addicted to social media.' Girls were most affected with 57 per cent agreeing, compared with 37 per cent of boys, according to the data reported by the Guardian.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The closing of a local hair salon tells you why Britain is going bust
On Wednesday, Rachel Reeves will stand up in the House and announce her latest plans for saving the country from bankruptcy. Somehow, she will have to produce plausible remedies for a crisis that seems insoluble: how to deal with catastrophic levels of government debt when there are endless demands for more public spending including a brand new commitment to provide more funding for defence. Having ruled out tax rises that clearly impinge directly on what they call 'working people' – income tax, VAT and employee National Insurance contributions – Labour has made this situation more complicated. But, perversely, they have chosen to make it even worse by pushing many of the most productive contributors to the economy out of business. The Labour Government, by putting supposed ideological solidarity over economic reality, has created the perfect formula for the failure of precisely the business sector which contributes most to national vitality and growth. Let me offer an illustration in the hope that it might prove instructive to the present and any future Chancellor. A hairdressing salon that I know in a prosperous North London neighbourhood closed for good several weeks ago. It had been at its current location for over thirty years and was so popular that it often took days to get an appointment. After lockdown it recovered well with its loyal customers delighted to return. The emergence of the four day working week meant that Fridays became as busy as Saturdays and the salon was humming. So what went wrong? The owner was hit simultaneously by the increases in the minimum wage and employer NICS. Added to ever-increasing energy costs (exacerbated by green levies), this burden finally broke them. Even though they were a well-run thriving business, they could not survive. Sadly all of the junior staff and trainees were laid off. Given the economic climate now, they will struggle to find similar jobs anywhere else so they will not be paying any tax for the indefinite future and will almost certainly have to claim unemployment benefit: a double loss for the Treasury. The salon as a company has gone so it will no longer be paying corporation tax. The senior stylists who have carried on working privately are now self-employed which means they can, perfectly legitimately, claim all their work expenses against tax – so they will pay less income tax than they did under PAYE when they were employees. You get the picture. The net effect of the Government's measures has been to reduce the tax take for their own coffers and increase unemployment among people starting out in their working lives whose chances are further damaged by the ridiculous stipulation that they must have full rights to secure employment from the day they are hired. What happened to one hair salon might not seem all that significant to the nation's future. But this pattern is being repeated in small businesses – particularly the ones that provide employment to young people starting out in working life – in countless numbers. Retail shops, building services and hospitality outlets are cutting staff and failing to hire new recruits because the cost of employing them is back breaking. As a result, they are not expanding and developing their businesses as they might have – and so not contributing to the growth of the economy in the significant way that small businesses, with their inherent dynamism and industriousness, once did. Labour, in its supposed determination to support 'working people' has created a doom loop in which fewer people will be joining the workforce and the consequent reduction in tax revenue will make the government even less able to meet the limitless demands of the welfare system as well as pay off its debts. Needless to say, there have been some obvious winners in the Labour dynamic: public sector employees have had their mouths stuffed with gold not only because Labour is historically inclined to favour the unions which represent them but because they can threaten disruption on a scale that reduces any complaining chorus from the small business sector to an inconsequential squeak. But there is more to it than that, in ideological terms: business generally, and small business in particular, are seen as inherently self-interested enterprises. Because they have been created, developed and run by private individuals in the hope of making a profit, they must be morally suspect and less worthy of support than the services that the state funds and operates for the general good of society. Carry this to its logical conclusion and it becomes admirable to penalise people who want to profit from other people's need for their services in order to pay for the provision of services dispensed 'fairly' (and without profit) by the government. You know where this ends, don't you? The most innovative, resourceful, determined individuals who might have developed new ways of creating real wealth and employing more people in experimental ways have impossible demands put on them which threaten their survival or, at the very least, make their continued existence as difficult as possible. They are encumbered with inflexible employment conditions which might possibly be appropriate for huge public sector organisations but are death to experimental emerging enterprises. Their tax arrangements are made so horrendously complicated and difficult to master that expensive accountancy advice becomes essential. I know self-employed sole traders in the creative industries who would like to enlarge their practice but are terrified of crossing the income threshold that would require VAT registration which now involves coping with Making Tax Digital – a peculiarly sadistic form of monitoring which, as HMRC has just discovered in its attempt to introduce it in self-employed income tax, can be susceptible to cyber hacking. Yes indeed, create a business on your own and try to make it a success – just try. The Government, and its agents in HMRC who can't even be bothered to answer the phone, will make your life as difficult as possible. And the more obstacles they put in the way to prevent you from flourishing and expanding, the more virtuous they will feel even though you and the real wealth that you create are the only things that might have saved them.
