Money makes the world go round, and entertainment companies know it, always putting out new- and sometimes improved- content. But something they may forget is that money is also the root of all evil, a fact many of them seem to have completely ignored. The endless stream of new products and games in an attempt to get more and more money seemingly leaves them with nothing to do but announce new versions of the same old thing.
Nintendo has recently announced their Nintendo Switch 2 to be showcased on April 2, 2025. The new system follows the same basic concept, giving it a new black design, along with adding more ports, a stand on the back, and replacing the sliding controllers with ones that can simply be pulled from the side. The price has not been revealed but many speculate it will cost upwards of 400 dollars, whereas the original switch only costs 300. The new system has been announced to have exclusive games as well, only playable on the Switch 2. With the other biggest game system companies making developments five years prior, Nintendo is late to the sequel game. And while the other companies boasted new graphics and better software, Nintendo has yet to release anything about their new system other than the hardware.
In the same boat of sequels no one asked for, the original creator of Minecraft, Markus Persson, going by Notch online, has also been working. In a Twitter post he made this year, he said, “I basically announced Minecraft 2.” Perrson claims the new game will be a “spiritual successor” to the beloved block game. Through his Twitter, he also announced the name of the game to be “Levers and Chests,” saying the game will be a first-person roguelike. Screenshots of a potential UI have been released, revealing something that looks almost nothing like Minecraft, other than the fact it’s very pixelated. Other screenshots released have shown multiple characters, items, and attributes.
There are many questions to be asked about these new sequels, but the biggest one has to be “Why?” Why make these things, and why advertise them in this manner? Persson, while making a first-person pixelated roguelike, a genre generally associated with dungeon-crawlers and set paths, claimed to be making “Minecraft 2,” even though Minecraft is a sandbox game, where there is no set path, making it almost the polar opposite of a roguelike. And Nintendo, rather than making an entirely new game system, simply altered their old one and put a new number on it. But Persson has created a number one best-selling game before, and Nintendo is well known for their game systems, so only time will tell what quality the public can expect from the developers on both sides.
Be it money or passion, the reasoning behind these new products doesn’t matter, as they’re being made regardless. All that’s left to do is wait, with either anticipation or disappointment.
