How much would you pay for a Nintendo Switch 2?

Hello, Internet friends. Welcome to the second edition of Brain Slop.

Are you going to pick up a Nintendo Switch 2?

The video game giant unveiled a ton of details about its upcoming successor to the iconic Switch this week. One of my friends already applied for a preorder ... but I’m not sure about his justification that it’ll help his kid become a Twitch streamer/their retirement plan.

I don’t think I’ll be part of the early adopter crew for the Switch 2. Nothing against the new console — I just don’t have the time carved into my life for video games. The most current consoles in our household are a PlayStation 4 and two Switch Lites.

I might be the guy who preorders a new iPhone model the day it goes live, but I’ve always been behind when it comes to video game consoles.

• Game Boy Color: I didn’t own any kind of system until I bought the new Game Boy Color with my First Communion money. Almost bought a regular Game Boy just to get the transparent green color.
• Game Boy Advance: Preordered this one at Media Play back in 2001. Obviously got the transparent purple color.
• GameCube: I eventually got a GameCube at some point in high school only to be devastated when the memory card holding my Madden NFL 2004 franchise that was like thirty seasons deep corrupted.
• PlayStation 4: I was late to the PlayStation scene, only buying a PlayStation 4 to play Spider-Man. It came in handy when Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order came out too.
• New Nintendo 3DS XL: Honestly, I just wanted a system that would let me play classic Tetris.
• Nintendo Switch Lite: I have the pandemic (and a broken foot) to thank for adding a Switch Lite to our collection in order to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

As of Nintendo’s announcement earlier this week, a Switch 2 was set to cost you $459.99 — a bundle that includes Mario Kart World was going to cost $499.99 — but the game giant has delayed preorders to “assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.” The $459.99 price was already a sizable jump from the $299.99 the original Switch sold for when it was released in 2017. Will people be willing to pay even more?

I always like to tell myself that I’m going to shell out for one of these news systems. I’ve thought about upgrading to a PlayStation 5 — even going so far as to having one in my cart — to play games like Spider-Man 2 or Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. But then I look at my PlayStation 4 and Switch collecting dust. (I think everyone on my Animal Crossing island is dead now.)

Also, how do you all find time for video games? I’ve accepted the reality that there just isn’t time in my life for them.

So, yeah, the Switch 2 looks cool. And now that we have a kid, there’s a good chance we’ll pick one up eventually in order to play Mario Kart World. For now, though, I’m going to live vicariously through any of you who pick one up when they hit stores in June.

• 📖 Nintendo Switch 2 to launch in June with 4K visuals and surprise game lineup (Samantha Chery and Gene Park, The Washington Post)

what they’re saying about the switch 2

• Nintendo Switch 2 hands-on: it’s all in the games (Andrew Webster, The Verge): “It turns out that slightly bigger and slightly better makes a notable difference for an eight-year-old console, and Nintendo’s early lineup of games shows that off very well.”
  • Mario Kart World is pure chaos (Andrew Webster, The Verge): “With Mario Kart World, perhaps the biggest launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2, there isn’t one single innovation that sets it apart. Instead, it’s the overwhelming chaos created by all the new features — and it’s a blast.”
• The takeaway from hours with the Switch 2: The games are a blast (Gene Park, The Washington Post): “After several hours of play, I can confidently say the Nintendo Switch 2 is an expected but welcome upgrade to Nintendo’s console capabilities, as the century-old entertainment company finally enters the 4K high-definition era.”
• The Nintendo Switch 2, hands-on: It’s pretty good! (Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch): “It’s not that the Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t super – I’ll go out on a limb and call it the Pretty Good Nintendo Switch. Rather, the Switch 2 tries to take a console that’s already beloved and simply just make it better.”
• We played with the Switch 2, and it's Nintendo’s least-weird console ever (William Hughes, AV Club): “It might actually be the most boring console name that Nintendo, which flew me out to a preview event this week to spend five hours going hands-on with the new hardware, has ever selected. No weird portmanteau, no goofball naming convention, not even an extraneous ‘Super.’”
• The Nintendo Switch 2 Is Nice, and Its Mouse Gaming Mode Is Even Nicer (Alex Cranz, Gizmodo): “We’ve got a bit until the Switch 2 is available for order, and you’ll need to be jumping through some hoops if you want to get physical with it before then. But I snagged some time with it, and I am here to tell you: I love mouse gaming on the Switch 2.”
• Hands On With Nintendo’s Switch 2, Which Will Be a Mario Kart Machine (Jason Schreier): “My initial impressions: It feels good. The new controllers are sturdier, using magnets rather than rails to attach to the system. Everything is slightly heavier than the Switch, giving the new player a bit more heft and making it feel a tiny bit more comfortable.”
• How the GameCube Controller Works on Nintendo Switch 2 — and How You Can Get One (Matt Kamen, Wired): “However, like the replica pads for other retro consoles, sales of the GameCube controller will be restricted to those subscribing to the Nintendo Switch Online service. That's likely Nintendo's way of preventing scalpers, but we wouldn't be surprised if supplies are stretched thin anyway, at least at launch.”

the links

tech

• Invasion of the Home Humanoid Robots (Cade Metz, The New York Times): “When I visited Mr. Børnich’s home a month later, Neo started to struggle with the refrigerator’s stainless-steel door. The robot’s Wi-Fi connection had dropped. But once the hidden technician rebooted the Wi-Fi, he seamlessly guided the robot through its small task. Neo handed me a bottled water.”
• Wikipedia is struggling with voracious AI bot crawlers (Mariella Moon, Engadget): “Wikimedia said that upon a closer look, 65 percent of the resource-consuming traffic it gets is from bots. It’s already causing constant disruption for its Site Reliability team, which has to block the crawlers all the time before they they significantly slow down page access to actual readers. Now, the real problem, as Wikimedia states, is that the ‘expansion happened largely without sufficient attribution, which is key to drive new users to participate in the movement.’ A foundation that relies on people’s donations to continue running needs to attract new users and get them to care for its cause. ‘Our content is free, our infrastructure is not,’ the foundation said.”
• When will physical video games go away? (Jay Peters, The Verge): “Both van Dreunen and Piscatella ultimately made the comparison of video games to vinyl records, which is ‘kind of like on the extreme niche, but doing OK,’ Piscatella says. There’s a key difference between vinyl and video games, of course — with a vinyl record, you can play it on a turntable, but a physical cart of Super Mario Odyssey can only slot into a Nintendo Switch. It’s more about the enthusiast crowd focusing on physical media.”

food

• Chipotle Went on a Seven-Year Quest to Find Avocados Outside of Mexico (Heather Haddon, The Wall Street Journal): “Few companies can match Chipotle’s avocado appetite. The California-based fast-casual restaurant chain estimates that it bought around 5% of all the avocados consumed in the U.S. last year. Since domestic production is limited, most of the roughly 132 million pounds of avocados Chipotle used across its 3,700 locations last year were imported, executives said.”
• Welcome to the Cosmic Brownie Galaxy (Sam Stone, Bon Appétit): “For all the modern remakes, Little Debbie, the snack giant that created the OG Cosmic Brownie 26 years ago, is selling more brownies than ever: 530 million last year, according to a representative from the company — an increase of 100 million brownies from a decade earlier. The dessert has a loyal following online as well. Copycat recipes abound, and when TikTok baker Gregory Mason posted a video in February detailing his recipe for a Cosmic Brownie dupe, it received 2.4 million views. There’s Cosmic Brownie cereal, Cosmic Brownie candles, and Cosmic Brownie protein powder.”
• That “healthy” soda? Your gut might disagree (Carly Mallenbaum, Axios): “‘Like any fiber, inulin may cause temporary digestive discomfort as the body adjusts to increased fiber intake,’ Olipop told Axios in a statement. ‘That's why both nutrition experts and OLIPOP recommend starting with one can and gradually increasing over time.’”

science

• Neanderthal Faces Were Bigger Than Ours. Turns Out We’re the Weirdos (Margherita Bassi, Gizmodo): “In a study published Monday in the Journal of Human Evolution, a research team shows that modern human faces reach their final adult size much earlier than Neanderthal faces, and that Neanderthals had more bone formation around their cheekbones and noses. While this doesn’t resolve the matter of why our faces were shaped differently, it does answer the question of how, and highlights a unique process that shaped human faces into what they are today.”

sports

• Why the Algorithm Loves Gen Z’s ‘It Couple’ Livvy Dunne and Paul Skenes (Sam Schube, GQ): “They present a striking contrast—she’s petite and muscular, he’s a foot taller and built like an oaken door — but each is tuned into the other as we speak. They’re not overly cuddly in my presence, but Livvy tells me that she thinks Paul’s love language is physical touch. And where Paul is all quiet confidence, Livvy is perhaps Gen Z’s premier merchant of rizz — slang, mostly for those under 25, for ‘charisma.’ To wit: The LSU gymnastics team added security measures after an unruly, practically drooling crowd of teenage boys gathered to wait for her to appear after a meet in Utah.”
• Baseball’s torpedo bat revolution is here — and it is bulbous (Chelsea Janes and Andrew Golden, The Washington Post): “Players were calling and texting. So were team equipment managers. Even retail outlets were trying to reach him. All of them had just watched, or been sent clips of, or gotten calls about, Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm hitting homers for the Yankees with that funny-shaped torpedo bat — the opening shots of a baseball revolution even the most skeptical major leaguers did not want to miss.”
• Baseball Reaches Its Breaking Point (Lindsay Adler, The New Yorker): “Many general managers, rather than focus on protecting their pitchers’ health, have instead focussed on creating a deep bench for their teams, so that they have a replacement on hand for when their star players inevitably get hurt. When one pitcher gets injured and requires surgery, he begins a lengthy rehabilitation program, and another pitcher is slotted in. In 2010, there were six hundred and thirty-five different pitchers used across the thirty teams during the season. In 2024, there were eight hundred and fifty-five — an average increase of more than seven pitchers per team.”

culture

• Are You a Hostile Punctuator??? (Angela Haupt, Time): “That means those tiny symbols, in conjunction with emojis and abbreviations like ‘JK’ and ‘LOL,’ have become tools used to capture tone and facial expression, while making clear not only what you're trying to say, but how you’re trying to say it. ‘We have to minimize ambiguity, because we're not going to be there to clarify,’ Curzan says. ‘So we have to get it right the first time.’”

a cartoon