My first thought upon seeing Switch 2 was probably very similar to yours. Murmur murmur, continuity, familiarity murmur murmur. You were probably much more coherent than me, and I apologize for that.
Anyway, when the right sentences started forming for me, the first one was something like: This is going to be strangely not at all strange to play. And that's weird? So: this doesn't feel so much like a next generation of hardware as much as… a sequel.
Has there ever been a genuine hardware sequel? Not just a sequel, not just a successor, not just an evolution of the conversation in a charming new way: a proper sequel. I think the closest I can remember is probably the move from NES to SNES. Continuity was important, but this time everything you already knew you liked was made SUPER. Probably the easiest launch of all video games. And what a new machine that was. But it felt invigoratingly new. Four front buttons, shoulder parts, Mode 7. Not a sequel in my opinion.
Switch 2 is a sequel. Yes, the name makes it clear, but just look at the machine. It follows the classic laws of sequels, as established by Cliff Bleszinski: bigger, better, badder. What you recognize is the form factor, most of the elements you recognize and the adjustments, outside of size, are subtle. Magnets for the Joy-Cons, a proper mount instead of the small bike mount the Switch had.
This has made me think: I am not against this. You are welcome. And I realized that's because there's a place for sequels, but I'd never considered it before.
I mostly tell myself I'm against sequels, but that's because I'm still thinking about the first sequels I encountered, which were movies. (Back to the Future doesn't count, by the way, all three are perfect). Movie sequels are often mocked, so game sequels and other things are also mocked, all tarred with the same derogatory brush. But there is an important distinction. Movies tend to be primarily about stories, and stories tend to end in quite distinctive ways. It can be a real pain to think of more stories when you finished everything so carefully. But games are about systems most of the time, and systems don't end the same way stories do. You can keep going back, modifying, subverting, finding things you missed that lead to new mechanics and new joys and all that.
Then there's something else a designer once told me: at the end of making a game, you're pretty good at it. You are very good at doing it well.
Back to the switch. Would a wild new Nintendo machine be good? Yes of course. I remember sitting in bed one morning and reading about the Wii after it was revealed and trying to make sense of it, and that was brilliant. But it's also a pretty classic Nintendo idea to continue with something like the Switch. And this is due to several reasons. As hardware, the Switch is novel in a way that allows designers to continue creating new things from it; I'm thinking about that afterthought to the game of linking different screens with a swipe, but it's also actually pretty cool as it is. It gets out of the way by allowing you to play it wherever you want and also giving you a clear way to approach it as a player. You don't need the Wii moment, which a former editor once referred to as “learning to eat with a knife and fork again, but differently.”
What I'm getting at is that there's still potential inside the Switch, so tweaking bits and improving the hardware in ways I won't even pretend to understand makes sense. It feels hyper-evolved, giving you games wherever you want with minimal fuss. And it reminds me of that withered technology that people always talk about with Nintendo. It is not that the technology is old and cheap, but that the company finds old and cheap technology that hides ideas and potentials that have not yet been exploited.
So, Change 2? Yes please. And while I wait, I'll rewatch Back to the Future 2 and remember how good a sequel can be.