Cool hardware, generally stable experience, family friendly, lots of games which are enriching, the portability is awesome, it’s inexpensive, the games are fun, lots of exclusives…
There can be a thousand reasons to favour something, yet it only takes one reason to reject it.
As for the inexpensive bit, I've never really viewed Nintendo in that light because the games themselves are rather expensive. For my older DS/3DS it wasn't much of an issue since there was the secondhand market. It sounds like the secondhand market is a gamble with the Switch 2 which, at least in my case, makes it a non-starter. That is especially true since they are punishing the person with the legitimate cartridge, who may or may not have been the person who pirated the game.
Sure, but OP asked why anyone would ever buy one, and all of those alone can be a justification. He didn’t ask “how doesn’t everyone view these problems as a non-starter”. It’s an unbelievably popular and fast-selling console - the entire premise of the question is weird anyways.
Eh, from what I've heard it's not really that great. Nintendo isn't really known for cutting edge tech, they're really more known for their first party offering. Steam Deck is a few years old now but still pretty impressive hardware, so I would call them about equal
> generally stable experience
Yes this is true (as long as you don't try to mod), though Steam Deck has been rock solid stable for me
> family friendly
Can you expand on this a bit? Other platforms have family controls and lots of family-friendly game options so I don't know where Nintendo out competes in this area.
> lots of games which are enriching
Aside from the first-party games, this also doesn't feel like a unique quality of Nintendo
> the portability is awesome
I'm assuming you mean physical portability? If so then yes, but also not unique to Nintendo.
If you mean software portability like "can run games on other systems/platforms" then absolutely not. Steam is going to be way better at that.
> it’s inexpensive
Is it? Here at least the switch 2 is $500 (there is one on Amazon for $450 but it is "invite only"), compared with Steam Deck which starts at $400 but goes up to $650 for the top model. It seems like again Nintendo is just not unique in price.
> the games are fun, lots of exclusives…
The exclusives are IMHO really the only reason to get a Nintendo. If you really like their first party games then you have no choice. Everyone I know who bought a Switch (and will buy Switch 2) did it for this reason. To me personally the exclusivity is a major turn-off
You couldn’t think of ANY of these?