🟪 #94: I'm live on YouTube, and the Switch 2 is our new BFF

I'm live on YouTube in about 30 minutes, so come and join me!

Hi, hello, and welcome to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter.

First things first: in 30 minutes from now, I'll be live on YouTube for the first time. I want to test my streaming gear, and what better way than to unbox a bunch of Magic: The Gathering booster packs.

The stream will probably go for 45 to 60 minutes, so if you want to hang out, chat with me about everything or rage because I open up a serialized Mox Jasper (I hope!!!), tap the link above, hit the bell icon, and join me.

..and with that, let's get to today's newsletter.

🚀 Big Moves

The Nintendo Switch 2 is official. After months (years? It feels like years!) of rumours, speculations, and "leaks", the Nintendo Switch 2 is finally official. I'm extremely hyped. Sure, it's basically just a bigger, more powerful Switch with some added extras — and yes, it's expensive, especially the games (when I wrote my comment a while ago, I didn't expect Nintendo to raise prices for the whole gaming market). But a bigger, more powerful Switch, that according to experts can compete with a Steam Deck (here is a comparison post), is exactly what I was looking for. So yep, I got a preorder in. Since Chris is our resident Switch expert, today's comment down below is by him.
The Switch 2 will emulate Switch games. This one’s actually pretty fascinating. In an official Ask the Devs interview, developers Takuhiro Dohta and Kouichi Kawamoto revealed that the Switch 2 won’t run original Switch games natively. Instead, it’ll rely on a mix of hardware-level compatibility and software emulation. Now, I’m not exactly wearing a tinfoil hat here, but ever since Nintendo got their hands on Yuzu’s source code, you can’t help but wonder: did any of it end up shaping this feature?

🎮 Platform Updates

AMD might be preparing a new handheld chip. Take this with a grain of salt, but renowned leaker Hoang Anh Phu posted a tweet mentioning a "Ryzen Z2 AI Extreme". This might be a chip to compete against Intel's Lunar Lake, by adding AI TOPs. The leaker also mentioned a "Ryzen Z2 A", which if tech naming conventions are anything to go by, sounds like a budget-version to me.
ASUS teased the Xbox handheld. This is not very subtle, but it looks like that rumoured Xbox handheld, which is being co-developed by ASUS, might be much closer than we thought. Close enough for the Taiwanese company to start teasing it.

💻 Hardware & Software

Steam Deck update fixes boot loop. Apparently there was a boot loop bug? And apparently it's fixed now.
Delta adds online multiplayer for NDS. The iOS emulator Delta now supports online multiplayer for Nintendo DS games, using community-hosted servers (since Nintendo shut down the originals), — here's a list of supported games. Version 1.7 of Delta also adds support for texture packs.

🎲 Playthings

dbrand wants you to touch grass. dbrand is known for their shenanigans, and every April Fools' Day, they come up with crazy products, which unlike others they end up actually selling. This year, you can get not-actual grass on a device of your choice.
dbrand also launched a Killswitch for the Switch 2. One more announcement by dbrand, though this one was very obvious. You can preorder it, by paying $3, which will be credited toward your final purchase and which is refundable anytime.
The League of Legend Card game is coming in October. The card game is called Riftbound: League of Legends Trading Card Game (what a mouthful)! According to my go-to shop for all my Magic needs, they got more preorders for Riftbound than for Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Which I think is wild.

📌 Quick Hits

37 screenshots of Mario Kart World. I wonder how hyped Chris is for this game?
Plex is rolling out its redesigned mobile app. Naturally, Plex is exclusively for organizing our totally legitimate collection of family videos… right? RIGHT?!

Dig the new format? Hate it? Hit those feedback buttons below and let me know what's working.

🔒 Premium Deep Dive:
Switch 2's Pricing Quandary is an Exercise in Uncertainty

As a somewhat obsessive Nintendo fan, Kevin has asked me to step in and write today’s column.

Now, when I initially sat down to draft this commentary, it was — in my mind, at least — going to focus on the fun details of the Switch 2 reveal: the hardware, the now-confirmed specs, and its broad software line-up. But as time has passed, it’s become clear that the one thing truly dominating the conversation is price, price, price.

Yes, the Nintendo Switch 2, by and large, costs more than the expected consensus had suggested. The figure floating around online for the past several months was a $399 entry point. Wishcasting? Guesstimate? Whatever. We now know that’s not the case, with the improved hybrid starting at a $449 sticker price — a fair bit higher than what was realistically expected.

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It’s increasingly clear that setting the Switch 2 price, particularly for the U.S. market, has been less a fixed decision for Nintendo and more of a frustrating moving target, buffeted by strong political winds.

During the pre-recorded Direct that aired Wednesday, any mention of price was conspicuously absent. Nintendo made no reference to what their long-awaited new machine, arriving in just two months, would cost. Not a single word.

This was an entirely sensible, if frustrating, decision — a deliberate choice to avoid publicly stating a hardware price in what has become a rather delicate and ever-changing political situation. Confirming a price point and setting it in stone isn’t particularly easy when there’s uncertainty around what it will actually cost Nintendo to manufacture the device. Setting a price and then having to change it later? Even worse.

Nintendo has a long history of pricing its machines with healthy margins — not taking a loss on hardware like some of its rivals. So the unpredictability of the tariffs being introduced by the U.S. administration represents a major spanner in the (no-doubt meticulous) Switch 2 launch plans.

Recent U.S. tariffs of roughly 54% on Chinese imports and 24% on Japanese goods make confirming a price point — and sticking to it — extremely difficult. Nintendo wants those favourable margins, and it’s clear they’re not about to sacrifice them for the benefit of the consumer. No, we’re all going to be paying more.

I do feel for Nintendo in this regard. They needed to move forward with their launch plans, but this frustrating political moment will, without doubt, take the sheen off the reveal and leave a lingering bad taste for many who would otherwise be excited about what looks like a compelling upgrade.

However, my compassion only extends to the hardware side of the story — software pricing is another matter entirely, and one not so clearly linked to tariffs or supply chain woes.

The lack of pricing in the Direct, followed by no clear cost breakdown online, made a messy situation worse. There was no obvious place to go after the Direct to get informed on what the wallet-busting reality would be.

We now know, of course. The hardware is going to cost a pretty penny, and those Switch 2 games carry a heftier price tag too.

Yes, broadly speaking, gaming software has been pretty much inflation-proof, so price increases were bound to happen eventually. Sony nudged things higher with the introduction of the PS5, and now Nintendo is following suit. It is what it is, but taken alongside the unavoidable stink on the hardware side, it doesn’t paint the rosiest picture for Nintendo as they head into launch.

They’ve had a tough time getting the messaging right, and it looks like the confusion — chiefly for those in the U.S. — is, sadly, set to continue for a while yet. But any tough time for Nintendo is nothing compared to the beating consumers’ wallets are about to take come June.

Mario Kart World best be worth it.