Analyst partially attributes Switch 2 hype to people “wanting to find something to bring joy” due to the state of the world

The Switch 2 is one month away from launch and there is an undeniable excitement in the air. Some of that buzz is coming from the gaming community in general, but an even bigger piece is due to the legions of Nintendo fans around the world.

In an interview with GamesRadar, Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana, Mat Piscatella, opened up about the Switch 2 launch and who he sees fueling the system out of the gate. Not surprisingly, he sees dedicated Nintendo fans showing up in droves to snag the system day one, and he thinks plenty of them would be at launch no matter what Nintendo was offering.

“I think the thing with this is that you have such an enthusiastic, dedicated audience, that I don’t think the launch lineup matters at all. What matters, I think, is the lineup as it looks six months in, when you have to start really trying to go after the more mass market or console enthusiast buyer, not just the Nintendo dedicated fan, because that person is going to buy this thing no matter what. So yeah, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter for the first few months. It will matter in holiday. I’m much more concerned about what that holiday slate looks like, which we don’t really know yet.”

[Mat Piscatella, Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana]

From there, Piscatella took a magnifying glass to the hype surrounding Switch 2. While it’s true that Nintendo fans are doing to be ready to line up for anything Nintendo at launch, he believes there’s more to it than that. Piscatella thinks some of the Switch 2 excitement is related to people feeling the pressures of the world right now, thus their need for something fun and exciting is higher than ever.

“It’s been so long since we’ve had a new console hardware platform. It’s been years. It’s been a long time, and people are looking for things to kind of get their mind off of what’s going on elsewhere. You can even see it online, just the desire people have to have something to be excited about. I don’t know, maybe it’s just my own perspective, but I just see this palpable desperation, in a sense, of wanting to find something to bring joy. And a lot of people are locking on to this, which, good for them.”

[Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana]