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On Friday, Nintendo hosted one of its Nintendo Switch 2 Experience events at CBS’s Televsion City in Los Angeles. We got a chance to go hands-on with multiple Nintendo Switch 2 titles and will be discussing them in detail. For this installment, we’ll be looking at Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.
I must admit, I have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. Touted as part tech demo, part proof of concept, part guided tour of the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, I wasn’t put off by the basic conceit of the game, but rather by its price tag. Specifically, the fact that Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour has a price tag at all. Sadly, even after playing it at the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience event, I still don’t know that making this a paid download is a wise move.
To me, the big elephant in the room that makes charging for Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour problematic is Astro’s Playroom on Sony’s PlayStation 5 console. That game is a free pack-in and serves a similar function by showing off the capabilities of PS5 and the DualSense controller. What’s more, it’s also a gorgeous and fun 3D platformer in its own right, despite being short. Throw in a celebration of the history of PlayStation and Astro’s Playroom is the perfect introduction for Sony’s console—at no extra cost.
Flash forward a few years to the impending launch of Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo is offering, frankly, a lesser experience at a premium. I’m sorry to sound so down on Welcome Tour, but I really wasn’t too impressed with it. Players get to roam the face of a disassembled Nintendo Switch 2 console as a minute avatar and play minigames to learn about the system. The minigames are varied, sure—one had me using the mouse controls to maneuver between falling spiked balls for as long as I could, another had me shaking maracas—but not terribly addicting nor memorable.
The lone standout that I got to experience was playing the original Super Mario Bros. at its original resolution. The game appears very tiny on-screen, and as the player progresses the game stretches across the TV until the level is concluded. Pretty cool. But on the opposite end of the spectrum were minigames tasking players with… seeing if they can gauge the frames per second of a ball bouncing across the screen. Exciting, right?
I say all that to say, it’s sort of a head-scratcher to show off things like screen resolution when it’s a been-there, done-that issue. Perhaps more pertinent to this discussion, though, is that it wouldn’t feel so egregious if Nintendo wasn’t asking players to pay to be wowed by these showcases of (mostly) old tech. Especially given the controversy over game pricing on Switch 2 after fans found out Mario Kart World is going to cost $79.99. It’s starting to get dangerously close to Nintendo fans feeling like they’re being nickel-and-dimed, and that’s never a good thing.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour will be launching digitally alongside Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5. I don’t know how many people will end up downloading Welcome Tour that day, but I suppose anyone who feels like they need a helping hand to learn how to use the system might want to consider it. For everyone else, maybe wait until it goes on sale—or is hopefully eventually made free.
How far we’ve come. Wii Sports was pack-in perfection. The 3DS came with AR cards, streetpass puzzles (or did those come later?) and a bunch of other freebie toys showing off various features of the system.
As much fun as I know I’ll have with Switch 2 exclusives, it’s unfortunate to not have much of that new-console excitement which pack-in software can really enhance. I’m a huge sucker for tech-demo type stuff, but even I’m on the fence about this one.