Hello all,

I am a fellow Nintendo fan that is writing this to tell you that what Nintendo is doing to their recently-released Switch 2 is beyond disgusting and could cause severe damage to the gaming industry as a whole. There are several reasons why, but I'll just list out five; the rest, including Joy-Con drift, are self-explanatory.

First up, obviously, is the pricing. I'm okay with the Switch 2 itself being priced at a modest 450 USD, but the games are another story; $80 being the average, that is insane, Years ago, the standard was just $60. They really thought that Mario Kart World would be a major breakthrough in the industry if they priced it that high, but HELL NO! The graphics are the same, if not worse than Mario Kart 8, and the gameplay is good, but not marvellous in my opinion. Also, they priced the Switch 2 Welcome Tour, a leitmotif of Astro's Playroom, at $10. Imagine you wanna know what you can do with your Switch 2 and you gotta PAY to learn how! This is like school tuition, but dumbed down beyond insanity. Meanwhile, they bundled in Wii Sports with the Wii, and they were EVERYWHERE in the late 2000s. Now, they're selling games at literally unfeasible prices!

Second up, GameChat. Nintendo introduced it as a way to communicate with your friends online, something that Microsoft actually achieved 20 years ago with Xbox Live and Halo! And also, it ripped off Discord, which has all of GameChat's features and many more that it can't do, like screen sharing, for example. When your friends share their screen to you, it's very grainy and choppy! I swear that Microsoft Windows 2000 can stream video better than that, just saying! Also, for now, it's freely accessible, BUT after March 31, 2026, you need a Nintendo Switch Online Membership to continue using it. Well, it most defintely ain't worth the service's atrocious online netcode, those crappy screenshares, or listening to Nintendo MUSIC via their own app exclusively that if you played on Spotify or YouTube, you'd get penaltlized and sued immediately!

On the topic of the egregious Switch Online paywall, thirdly is the Nintendo GameCube Classics! I'm still very bitter after they shut down the Wii U and 3DS eShops despite our desperate pleas, and with it, the Virtual Console! The Virtual Console held a very large amount of retro-games and golden oldies (like at least 2,000 titles), like Super Mario 64. But NOWADAYS Nintendo is being frustratingly decisive as to what games to bring to the Nintendo Switch Online Classics library, which doesn't even have a quarter of those titles, especially so when they announced the GameCube lineup, and they somehow exacerbated it a million fold! You can't even play these games with the base subscription, you gotta get the EXPANSION PACK! And where is Super Mario Sunshine, or Mario Kart Double Dash, or Luigi's Mansion, or even the original Kirby Air Ride (not the Riders spinoff of 2025)? (and DO NOT get me started on Super Mario 3D All-Stars, I'm already made SICK that it was a short-term "35th anniversary present" that got removed 6 months after, and I can't even start to IMAGINE what Nintendo will do on Mario's 40th anniversary!)

Fourth, game key cards, which defeat the entire purpose of physical game copies! Nobody on this entire planet, not even Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, would ever want this to exist. Game key cards are essentially cartridges that contain the "key" to downloading the game from the internet. Just pop in the cartridge, download it from the eShop, and you're ready to play. Easy? Yes. Simple? You betcha. A complete and utter violation of what physical game copies are for!? Most goddamn defintely! Normally, when you buy a game from a physical retailer (i.e. Best Buy, GameStop, Target), you have full and complete ownership of that game, and you can do whatever you want with it. Even when Nintendo's (highly unstable) servers go bust (offline), you can still play that game directly from the cartridge. But with game key cards, it's vastly different. Since these don't have the full game data and you need an internet connection to play them, once the servers call it quits, you won't be able to play them at all, and those "keys" are now just obsolete plastic husks. In other words, you no longer own those games that you've paid so much money for!

And the last but certainly not least reason is that if you attempt to mod your Switch 2, Nintendo can permanently brick it and render it unusable! That's right, no doubts about it, no caveats, I did not stutter, I'm saying this with 1000% certainty. Previously, Nintendo was more or less lenient on modding your console, hence the Homebrew Channel for the Wii. Sure, it overreacted when people were using Super Smash Bros. games in tournaments that it "did not approve or authorize", but that's becoming a thing of the past. UNFORTUNATELY, a new fear sets in to replace it: Nintendo has recently updated its End-User License Agreement (EULA), and the new changes are downright DISTURBING! One part of it says that "any unauthorized modification or changes to the system that allow it to circumvent security functions or accept unauthorized game copies or assets will result in Nintendo reserving the right to render your console permanently unusable in whole or in part.", and from the looks of it, even if you don't have an internet connection! That essentially means if, among other things, you attempt to implement the Discord API onto your Switch 2 because GameChat sucks (it really does), Nintendo has the ability to telepathically brick it out of nowhere! I don't know how, but even for them, that's too much! Yes, Sony and Microsoft have similar policies on their PlayStation and Xbox consoles, respectively, but neither mentions the telekinesis powers capable of bricking their consoles remotely like Nintendo has!

These are five things that Nintendo does to their Switch 2 that really concern me, not just because they make things unfair, but also because of their potential influence on the rest of the gaming industry. And little by little, its effects are showing throughout it. I thought GTA 6 would call the shots on pricing and be one of the first games at 80 USD, but OH NO, NO WAY SIR, SOMEONE ELSE DID IT FIRST! Now, every industry-standard game BEFORE GTA 6 will cost $80, and I'll have to take out a second mortgage! The person behind this carnage? Doug Bowser, which is fitting as he is named after Bowser, the main antagonist of every Mario game. Even Reggie Fils-Aime, the former Nintendo CEO, has spoken out against his actions, saying that what he is doing is wrong and considered greedy! And people, myself included, were also quick to point that out.

So what can we do as consumers to fight this issue?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Sign this petition, and perhaps donate to it if you can, share it across social media, tell the world that Nintendo can be better than this, stop focusing on money, and refocus with us, the players!

And most importantly of all...

...use this hashtag that associates with this movement:

#dropthegreednintendo

...alongside the usual:

#droptheprice

...to signify to the world that YOU can stop corporate greed at the expense of consumer experience, not just in Nintendo's case, but in every other case as well!

Thank you for your support, and good luck!