The Switch 2 FOMO is hitting me pretty hard.

A year ago, I was saying that the Switch 2 was too much money. A few months later, I bought an original Switch and too many games. Well, it certainly felt like too many games at the time. Six months later, Little Man has played through many to exhaustion, and we’ve now moved onto Breath of the Wild as a kind of stretch goal. That one is a bit too complicated for him at the moment – he mostly wants me to play so he can watch – but hopefully he’ll gain some more confidence soon.

Up to this point, Switch 2 kind of felt unnecessary. And it still is, for the record. But it is also a fact that Nintendo is planning a $50 price hike for the device this September, which makes waiting kind of a fool’s errand. And the games are kind of catching up. Mario Kart World is whatever, but Donkey Kong Bananza appears like it could be equivalent to Super Mario Odyssey, which Little Man is able to play and beat mostly on his own. I’m vaguely interested in Pokemon Pokopia. I’m extremely interested in the Ocarina of Time remake, especially after recently rewatching the final boss fight on Youtube and… not remembering it looking like that to my 16-year old self. I recall it being one of the most exciting and cool final boss fights I’ve ever played. Alas.

Regardless, $450 for a base model Switch 2 or $500 for one that comes with a game still feels bad. Paying $50 more this Fall will feel worse, of course. There are a couple of potential workarounds.

• Get over it
• Keep an eye on eBay/Facebook Marketplace/Craiglist
• Costco recently had a sale on Nintendo eShop cards, where it was $170 for $200, or $85 for $100. Stacked up, you could order a Switch 2 bundle direct from Nintendo for $425. Even with the sale over, baseline Costco sells cards for $10 less than face value, so $450.
• Some other retailers have similar shenanigans as Costco, such as Newegg, GameStop ocassionally, etc.
• Keep an eye on physical reselling spaces, like… GameStop, I guess, or pawn shops in general
• Get over it
• Hope there is some kind of special sale heading into the price increase
• Double-down on alternative gaming methods

That last one is what I “should” be doing, honestly. If GOG Galaxy is to be believed, I own 1,495 games across Steam, GOG, and Epic. A large majority of them would not be appropriate for Little Man to play, or too difficult, or impossible to play at all outside of a dedicated PC experience. But not all of them. A few from some recent bundles, like Lil Gator Game and Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip are less than 2 GB apiece and seem like good, kid-friendly, goof-around games.

After browsing through almost the entire list though… the options are a bit thin. I made a list of 17 games, which include some more “stretch goal” titles like Portal and No Man’s Sky. Minecraft would be on there too, of course, and is/has been one of the principle driving forces for a living room console in the first place. And won’t you know it, there’s a Switch 2 version of Minecraft coming out soon to take advantage of the increased hardware…