What Do We Actually Know About Switch 2?

After years of people clamouring for a higher-end version or successor to the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo of Japan’s President Furukawa sent rumours and leaks into overdrive when he announced that the company would “make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year”, i.e by the end of March. With so many conflicting “leaks” and groundless theories floating around it’s hard to find concrete information on the system. So what do we actually know about the Switch 2?

Is it backwards compatible?
During their 6/11/24 Corporate Management Policy Briefing, Nintendo announced that Switch software will be playable on the Switch 2, along with Nintendo Switch Online being available on it. More information on compatibility will be given “at a later date”. We also know from their 83rd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders that Nintendo Accounts (which all digital purchases are tied to) will remain in use between systems to ensure a “smooth transition”.

What games will launch on it?
At present, there are two Nintendo-published games announced for 2025 without a release window : Pokémon Legends: Z-A (Game Freak) and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (Retro Studios). With the Pokémon Presents showcase taking place on the 27th of February for the last three years, we won’t have to take long to hear more about one of these games.

Historically, Game Freak have waited until a few years into the next system’s life before moving over – Pokémon X & Y in 2013 for 3DS or Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire in 2002 for GBA, for example – it is likely that Z-A will only be on Switch 2 via backwards compatibility. However, Metroid Prime 4 could well be a cross-platform release like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was for Wii U and Switch.

As far as third party games go, we know that Activision executives met with Nintendo back in December 2022 to discuss the Switch from emails leaked from the FTC vs Microsoft case. Nate the Hate – a leaker and podcaster who has also claimed the Switch 2 will be announced this Thursday – has claimed that Ubisoft has “half a dozen” games coming to Switch 2, as well as Konami. Game companies set to release games on a games console? Shocking.

What can it do?
Some of the first rumblings about the Switch 2 were during Gamescom 2023, where some partners were shown tech demos running on the new system. These included a higher-end version of Breath of the Wild and the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo The Matrix Awakens, which was released for PS5 and XBox Series X in 2021 and is now delisted. Of course tech demos run in an extremely limited and controlled environment so the everyday limits of the console are still unknown – but it can run a Wii U game, don’t worry.

It also seems to be using a custom version of Nvidia's Tegra T234 processor called the T239 that can cut down on on load times using “an all-new file decompression engine” and features a “core component of DLSS [Deep Learning Super Sampling] 3 frame generation" despite being a trimmed-down version of the chip, according to Digital Foundry. This means that it’s possible games running on the Switch 2 will be upscaled to a higher resolution without compromising performance thanks to frame generation.

What does it look like?
Picture a tablet-like screen with two detachable controllers. Seriously, we don’t know how different the Switch 2 will be. Accessory manufacturers Genki and Dbrand have shown off accessories and cases for the Switch 2 that they claim are to the specs of the real thing, Genki even going so far as to make a mockup for the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show. Nintendo has decried what they’ve shown off as “not official” and not provided by them. Leaks suggest a bigger system, magnetically-attached Joy-Cons and a “C button” without a clear use, but there’s no saying for sure until we see the real thing.

Ultimately, we know very little about the next Nintendo console…because they haven’t announced it. I hope this article can serve as a time capsule of what we were working off of in the days and weeks before the official unveiling. Hope it has a better name than “Switch 2”.

(This article was originally published as part of my The Week in Games newsletter on 15/1/2024)