The Switch 2 Was Never Meant to be a Powerhouse Console

Certain consoles come along and brag about how powerful they are. "This new PlayStation will render water so realistically you'd swear you're swimming," or, "You can see every blade of grass in this new Xbox game," and so forth. Nintendo's consoles haven't ever (to my memory) been focused on bragging about computing power or such. The idea has been to make fun and interesting games via their wacky ideas. These ideas sometimes work out amazingly (the smash success of the Wii and Switch consoles) or flops a bit (the Wii U struggled). 

Still, complaining about a Nintendo console struggling to render games with the best graphics or such just doesn't make much sense. It is like complaining your shortberry shortcake ice cream sundae doesn't have any banana--you could've just got the banana split then! I saw all this as Polygon had an article remarking on how some ports to the Switch 2 of popular games already have it struggling to chug along a bit. I get the idea, but the Switch 2 will, most likely, find a way to keep itself relevant for a bit even as Sony or Xbox hype up their newest uber-powerful machines (which won't even support discs in Sony's case). I think the Switch 2 will continue to do just fine within its processing limits and remain a fun console known for just that: fun. Plus, the fact that we can at least have physical versions of many games if we want is a nice feature in an era where everything is going digital-only, whether we like it or not.

Sony is Killing Disc-Based Games, Physical Media Continues to Disappear

Sony has announced that, come 2028, games will no longer have physical disc releases. Everything will be digital on the PlayStation store or those little download codes in boxes at retailers. This will, in essence, kill the resale market for any new video-games games and really makes it look like the PlayStation 6 could be coming in 2028, and will be digital-only. We've had the option of digital-only consoles for some time (Xbox Series S springs to mind), but that being the sole option is worrisome for reasons I have outlined in various posts. You don't truly own that digital content, after all, and it could get harder to access at any point in the future. As if to drive this point home, Sony also announced it was shutting down the virtual stores for the PS3 and Vita--so download any games or updates while you still can! The internet is, to put it simply, enraged/pissed/big mad. 

In this day and age, even if a ton of sales are digital, having physical options makes it easier to rent a game, check it out from the library, borrow it from a friend, or otherwise do things that save consumers money. Then again, I suppose that costs companies some extra bucks they want to squeeze from people. Between AI chatbots that almost seem eerily self-aware and spew misinformation, the rise of science denial or political faelshoods (an alarming number of people insist the Earth is flat, vaccines cause autism, and any election their candidate didn't win was rigged), everything becoming a subscription service, and basic human rights being under attack (marriage equality, the right to an abortion, trans rights, and the list goes on), this future we're rapidly speeding towards seems more like a brick wall of destruction than an open road of progress. You know, Marion Stokes spent decades operating many VCRS so that she could tape hundreds of hours of television. She was a librarian, T.V. producer, and activist who was concerned that if we didn't have a record of what really happened in history, lies and falsehoods would be easy to spread with zero proof to counter them. Now, everything may end up digital and easy to alter without anyone noticing. My point is, she had a pretty solid argument.