Summary
I think we all had the same reaction yesterday whenNintendo finally unveiled the Switch 2’s mysterious “Welcome Tour”. It looked like an answer toAstro’s Playroom, a built-in tutorial that would walk you through all the new tech, letting you experiment with the new features firsthand. It’s a cute little way to get hands-on and see what sets the console apart from its predecessor. Nobody could get mad at that, right?
Then the bombshell dropped — you have to buy it.
The Steam Deck launched alongside Aperture Desk Job, a free-to-playPortalspin-off designed to let you test the new handheld.
It’s cheap, at least. As reported byVGC, it’ll set you back 990 Yen, roughly $6.12 or £4.65. But a tech demo meant to acclimatize you with the Switch 2 costinganythingis still bizarre, and people aren’t taking the news well.
“Who Would Pay For A Tutorial?”
“This should be free,“u/Trabless posted on r/NintendoSwitch2, amassing over 47,000 upvotes. And with over 2,700 comments and counting, it’s clear that even six bucks is crossing the line for a ‘game’ like Welcome Tour, especially when the Switch 2 itself is so expensive.
“Insane that this doesn’t just get released as pre-downloaded software. Who’d pay for this??” u/speedpowerxx commented. “I audibly laughed when they said it wasn’t free,” u/Blayden_Ridge said. “First Nintendo game to sell zero copies,” u/redditabismal mused.
It’s hardly surprising that the overwhelming sentiment is a bewildered “why?”, especially when you consider that the live chat during the Direct was already flooded with Ls and confusion amidst the announcement. Many argue that it should be a pack-in game, preinstalled when you buy the console so that you can toy around with the system while you download other games, like the new Mario Kart World. Or, at the very least, a free download.
But nobody summed it up better than u/CoastingUphill: “So they expect us to pay for… the instruction manual?”
