5 days ago
Why there'll be no Nintendo Switch 2 console review this week
Nintendo have not sent out review units of the Switch 2 before launch, so coverage of Mario Kart World and the other games is going to be delayed.
The Nintendo Switch 2 will launch at midnight on Thursday, June 5 but we won't have a review ready for it, at that time. As far as we understand nobody else will either, at least in Europe, because Nintendo has decided not to send out review units until much closer to launch. It's not that uncommon for publishers to withhold review copies, but when they do it's almost always because they know the game's a stinker and want to delay the negative scores until the last minute.
That was certainly the case for something like Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, although the most infamous example of recent years is the debacle surrounding Starfield's launch – when Bethesda only denied review copies to those websites (mostly in the UK and including us) that they thought most likely to give it a negative review.
However, we don't think that's what's going on here. Nintendo claims that they want everyone, including journos, to experience the Switch 2 the same way. The reason they give for the situation is that they want everyone to wait for a day one patch. We're not sure exactly what it does but there's one for both Mario Kart World and the console itself.
At the moment, we don't know when we'll receive the console, just that it'll be on Thursday or possibly Wednesday. We're not even sure if it'll even work, if we do get sent it early, given the experiences of those that have got hold of a console ahead of time.
The obvious question is whether Nintendo is hiding anything; some negative element they don't want discussed until the last possible moment. Our guess, based on how many preview events they've held – including the one that resulted in today's new hands-on reports for Mario Kart World and Welcome Tour – is that they're not.
They're just being very Nintendo about things and, since the decision was almost certainly made in Japan, perhaps not realising quite how it would come across in the West. It's not a decision third party publishers will be happy about it either, as it means they won't see reviews for any of their launch games until well into next week – since they'll be a lower priority than Nintendo's first party titles.
That's no doubt why Konami organised the recent preview for Survival Kids, but other than that the only time we've played any third party games is for a few minutes each at the big press event back in April. Also, technically we haven't played a retail version of the Switch 2 console yet, only devkits – which are physically near identical but a bit heavier.
As you can imagine, this is going to slow down our review coverage of the console and its games considerably, especially as it's Summer Game Fest on Friday and the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday (things we very much doubt Nintendo of Japan factored into their considerations).
Since we don't know exactly when we'll get our console we can't be specific about any of our coverage, after today's previews, but we have pre-ordered ordinary shop-bought consoles to arrive on Thursday, so we'll have that as a bare minimum. More Trending
Hopefully though, we'll have a review in progress of Mario Kart World this week, perhaps even Thursday, and then everything else as and when we get it out the door. As our previews have made clear, Mario Kart World is obviously a great game, it's just a question of exactly how great.
This isn't the ideal way to start coverage of the Switch 2, but no company is obliged to send out review units or games early and if Nintendo feels we need to wait until the day one patch there's nothing we can do about it.
Despite what you might imagine, they're usually one of the best companies for sending out review copies before release and we expect that to continue to be the case once the launch is over. For now though, we've stocked up on Red Bull and will bring you our coverage as quickly as we can, while at the same time trying to make sure we don't rush anything.
Many of you will also be receiving your own pre-orders on Thursday, so do please write in and let us know your thoughts via the usual email address, and we can use your comments either in the daily Inbox or as a Reader's Feature.
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