Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is cool, but it's not $10 cool

The Nintendo Switch 2 is finally out this week, and you’re going to be seeing a lot of cool reviews and features going up on GAMINGbible in the coming days.

It’s safe to say that myself and the rest of the team are having a blast playing Mario Kart World, or checking out the new updates to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pokémon: Scarlet and Violet.

We’re even having fun dipping back into some old faves like Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky, which have newly improved ports debuting on the Switch 2.

But of course, there’s another hot game out now that’s got everyone and their grannies talking. Yes, I’m talking about the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.

Okay, all jokes aside, I’ll say this right off the bat—Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is fine. It’s cool, actually. It’s a small demonstration of everything the Switch 2 hardware is capable of, wrapping it up in a neat little interactive exhibition hall.

Your avatar is put onto this giant Nintendo Switch 2, where they can run around collecting stamps that represent every little button, dial, and feature that makes up the console. When you collect enough stamps in one area, you’ll move onto the next one.

It should go without saying that developing a console for millions to play isn’t an easy task, and Welcome Tour is a good opportunity to learn more about the hard work that’s gone into making the Switch 2 a reality.

As you explore, you’ll be fed information about the console. You’ll learn just how each feature of the Switch 2 works, from the HD Rumble 2 to the mouse sensors on the Joy-Cons. You can then use this information in various quizzes to test your memory and knowledge about the hardware.

There are also minigames to take part in, which is the only real part of Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour that doesn’t just feel like you’re doing exam revision. And for what it’s worth, these minigames can be quite fun.

For example, there’s one where you can use the new Joy-Con mouse feature to move a cursor and avoid incoming spiked balls, and another minigame where you have to use the 120 frames per second display to determine how fast a ball is moving.

There’s even one where you play ‘Super Mario Bros 1-1’ on a single screen to demonstrate just how many pixels a 4K display has compared to the output of an NES.

For what is essentially a collection of tech demos, it’s quite cool. Nothing too groundbreaking, but it’s something I can appreciate spending a few hours of my time doing. And I’ve come away from Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour with a newfound appreciation and understanding of certain features the Switch 2 brings.

Welcome Tour is essentially the Wii Sports or Nintendo Land of the Switch 2. But unlike those games, which were bundled with new purchases of the Wii and Wii U, Nintendo is charging £8/$10 for it, which completely baffles me.

Up until recently, I was expecting this to be free and already downloaded onto new Switch 2 consoles. It makes less sense to me as something you’d have to go onto the eShop, pay real money for, and download.

It’s made me think about other tech demos that people enjoyed in the past. PlayStation did Astro’s Playroom for the PS5 and Welcome Park for the PS Vita. Valve published Aperture Desk Job to demonstrate the Steam Deck. Even going back to 2005, Xbox made Hexic HD to show off the fancy high-definition resolution the 360 was capable of.

I feel like people still remember those demos years later. The legacy of Wii Sports outlives the console itself and, for a while, Astro’s Playroom was the best thing you could play on PS5.

Will anyone remember Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour in five years? Ten years? It’s a really cool demonstration of all the console’s bells and whistles, but with a price tag like that, I don’t really know who this is for.