So the Nintendo Switch price and release date have been out for a little over two weeks now, and I've had time to sit with it, watch a bunch of hands-on previews from January's press events, and generally decide how I feel. Short version: I like the hardware, I still can't get a preorder locked in, and I have Opinions about what's missing at launch.
For anyone who somehow missed it: Switch launches March 3rd for $299.99. That gets you the console, a dock, two Joy-Con controllers (the little detachable ones, one neon red and one neon blue in the default bundle, or a gray pair if you want to look like an adult), and the Joy-Con grip that turns them into something resembling a normal controller. Battery life is somewhere between 2.5 and 6.5 hours depending on what you're playing, which is a pretty wide range and tells you Breath of the Wild is going to murder that number.
Speaking of, Zelda is launching day one on Switch, same March 3rd date, which I think is honestly the smartest thing Nintendo has done in years. After the Wii U basically had no games worth mentioning for most of its life, pairing the new console with the one game everyone's actually been waiting for feels obvious in hindsight but clearly wasn't obvious to whoever ran the Wii U launch lineup.
Here's my complaint, and it's a real one: no Virtual Console at launch. None. You're buying a $300 machine with zero access to Nintendo's back catalog on day one, and they've been cagey about when that's actually coming. I get that VC has never been a system-seller on its own, but after seven-plus years of buying into VC libraries on the Wii and Wii U and then watching that investment basically evaporate every time Nintendo switches hardware (pun intended, sorry), I'm tired of it. I own Ocarina of Time on like three different Nintendo systems at this point and I'll probably buy it a fourth time eventually because that's apparently the deal we've all agreed to.
The online situation is also weird. Online multiplayer is free through the rest of 2017 and then becomes a paid subscription sometime in the fall, details still unannounced. So Nintendo is basically asking early adopters to enjoy free online for a few months and then get used to paying for something Xbox and PlayStation owners have been paying for since forever. Fine, I guess, that's the industry standard now, but announcing "pay for this eventually, exact terms TBD" is not exactly a confidence-inspiring pitch.
Now, the preorder situation. I tried to get one locked in the evening the Direct aired and by the time I'd finished watching the whole presentation and refreshed a couple retailer pages, stock was already gone in a lot of places. GameStop, Best Buy, Amazon — all showing out of stock or backordered within hours. I ended up on some backorder list I don't fully trust and I'm just going to assume I won't have one in hand on March 3rd. Which, fine, I've been burned by launch-day hardware before and it's rarely worth the stress anyway (looking at you, every PS4 restock in 2013).
What actually sold me, more than the price or the specs sheet, was watching footage of people playing 1-2-Switch at the preview events — the goofy party game with stuff like the cow-milking motion controls and the quick-draw duel. It looks completely dumb and I mean that as the highest compliment. It's sold separately for $49.99 though, not bundled, so that's another cost tacked onto an already not-cheap launch if you want it day one.
I don't think $299.99 is unreasonable for what you're getting, a home console and a portable in one box, but between the console, an extra Joy-Con set if you want local multiplayer out of the box (those run $79.99 for a pair), and a game or two, you're looking at well over $400 before tax to actually have a good first weekend with this thing. That math is the part nobody puts on the box.
Anyway. If anyone reading this actually managed to lock down a preorder somewhere that still has stock, I will take a tip in the comments, genuinely.