Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]
380 comments
·January 16, 2025nerdjon
bargainbin
They’ve got the weird shit covered still, apparently the joy cons in this gen can be used as mice.
Was heavily rumoured/leaked and this teaser video literally shows them gliding along a surface.
How Nintendo will leverage that functionality, who could honestly say, but that’s the genius of keeping a toy company mindset in an industry full of sports car company mindsets.
enragedcacti
the teaser also has a clear shot of the side and there's a sensor that looks identical to an optical mouse sensor. It seems really rough from an ergonomics perspective but maybe there are accessories for that. It could also go the way of the IR camera where it sees niche uses in a couple of random games but isn't really a staple of the console.
https://www.polygon.com/nintendo-switch-2/509821/nintendo-sw...
adamc
That last sentence is worth an essay of its own. Everyone else keeps pumping resources into being photo-realistic blah-blah-blah without nearly enough attention to "is this fun"?
ecliptik
One of my favorite video essay's on this is "Nintendo - Putting Play First" by Game Makers Toolkit [1]. It goes into when making a game, Nintendo first determines the mechanic they want to focus on; jumping, throwing a hat, shooting paint, etc and finding out how to make it fun, then building and iterating on the idea.
It's how they can keep putting out essentially the same games but are completely different.
m_fayer
Strongly agreed. When I think of the best Nintendo products the words “fun” and “play” spring to mind.
AAA gaming on the other hand, either resembles sports, shallow short-form media, or Oscar-bait melodrama. Very little fun to be had.
What ever happened to fun and play?
bloomingkales
As a mice or a air mouse. The smart tv stuff is limited by a remote control from 1980 (more or less, what changed?). I'd make lifestyle apps for the switch if they enable it.
chungy
Nintendo has tended to maintain at most 1 generation of backwards compatibility, though you can get some fuzzy ideas of "generations" in a few cases.
Game Boy Color: plays original Game Boy games
Game Boy Advance: plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color games
Nintendo DS: plays Game Boy Advance games
Nintendo DSi: plays Nintendo DS games
Nintendo 3DS: plays Nintendo DS and DSi games
Nintendo New 3DS: plays Nintendo DS, DSi, and (old) 3DS games
Nintendo Wii: plays GameCube games
Nintendo Wii U: plays Wii games
nerdjon
Based on that list, they have tended really only to do that on mobile platforms. It was one of my favorite things about the platform, but it always felt like this was partially thanks to the older hardware still getting games well into the new hardware's life in many cases. Major games, I believe Pokemon has done this a few times?
Most of their home consoles were complete departures from previous hardware.
NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube all did not work with prior games were fairly different (ok admittedly the outward difference between the NES and the SNES were minimal but still no compatability).
So honestly I think it was more notable that the Wii could play Gamecube games than the other way around as far as Nintendo's track record goes.
la6776
for what it's worth Nintendo had planned to make the SNES backward compatible and that intention influenced design choices, particularly the very similar CPU.
10729287
>Nintendo New 3DS: plays Nintendo DS, DSi, and (old) 3DS games
I know HN doesn't have any room for sarcasm but I couldn't not laugh trying to remember what were the NEW 3ds games. Sure the second pad made the 3DS way more comfortable to play, and 3D was a bit better, but we all got scammed here regarding games supporting this new hardware.
TuxSH
3DS has hardware support for GBA games too, actually, though these only got distributed via the Ambassador program.
Also had VC for most of Nintendo's platform.
chungy
I know, and you can basically restore full GameCube compatibility on the Wii U via Nintendont. Neither of them let you use the actual physical games from the old system, and needing to perform jailbreak hacks to use them and load ROMs on anyway doesn't count as much as out-of-the-box compatibility.
rpdillon
> The only real issue the Switch had was being able to keep up with some of the games put on it with FPS but it still had beautiful games (like Tears of the Kingdom)
A bit of an aside, but... Tears of the Kingdom looks just awful to me. My kids played Breath of the Wild and when they got Tears of the Kingdom I walked in and was astonished at the graphic quality. I think I had just finished Doom 2016 at the time and I felt like I was rewinding the clock 15 years in graphical quality. I've heard literally zero other people have this complaint, so I suspect it's just my take on the aesthetics of the game.
I think the state-of-the-art on Switch is really Panic Button's work on the Doom and Doom Eternal ports, but those are frame locked at 30 FPS, so I think getting a spec bump in Switch 2 would certainly help the demographic that plays games like that. My family has left the Switch ecosystem for Steam Deck, and that does a lot better. Would be interesting to compare with the Switch 2 in terms of specs.
3836293648
Tears of the Kingdom's only graphical issue is framerate and resolution. Maybe some ground textures.
If you have issues with it it's entirely with the style, the graphics are fine.
nothercastle
Lack of ram meant it could only handle a couple trees at a time
buster
To me, Nintendo is more about gameplay then graphics and i hope it stays that way.
nerdjon
I would say gameplay and art style instead of what the rest of the industry calls graphics (polygon count basically).
Nearly all Nintendo (game freak is not technically Nintendo) games look beautiful thanks to having a great art style instead of just focusing on higher polygon count.
sefke
I agree with you, but in some newer games it just doesn't make sense to me.
They want good graphics but the Switch can't handle them, but they still try to make them.
For example, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.
Gameplay and the game design for me personally is really great, but I can't stand the graphics. I would rather play on worse graphics just to not have constant frame drops and in some parts of the game N64 graphics and in some 4K ones.
dylanz
Agree completely. I loved Tears and didn’t once think it looked bad in any way. It was a very clever game and made me feel like a kid again. That’s what I’m looking for in a Nintendo game. I’ll jump on my PS5 if I want to be wowed graphically.
mingus88
Exactly. If you want to be dazzled with AAA titles running at 120Hz/60fps/4k then there are plenty of ways to spend your money. Frankly that segment of the industry feels like a treadmill of never ending upgrades for the same basic game.
My whole family shares and island in animal crossing, firing up some arcade brawlers on the couch. We’ve been playing the hell out of our switch for years and never once have we complained that it’s not flashy enough.
xnx
> My kids played Breath of the Wild and when they got Tears of the Kingdom I walked in and was astonished at the graphic quality.
You must have good eyes! I've played through both and would be hard-pressed to tell a scene from BotW from TotK at a glance.
manojlds
State of the art imo is Metroid Prime
PaulHoule
It's a beautiful game, one of the first to use programmable shaders, and one of the earliest that doesn't look dated at all. The shaders make everything look smooth without looking blurry.
Loading screens are hidden, it's not like the contemporaneous PS2 game Mafia where you wait a few minutes to load, spend a few minutes driving across town on a mission to shoot up some people at a restaurant, get yourself shot up, then have to wait for it to load all over again.
rikthevik
Beautiful art direction to be sure.
But let's be real, it's Super Metroid. :)
FractalHQ
The games are crippled by how archaic and underpowered the hardware is. TOTK is beautiful _despite_ the hardware limiting its true potential, robbing world class studios, and forcing them to cut corners.
It’s indefensible considering how much legendary IP that potato is holding hostage.
piyuv
Early leaks said screen was LCD, hoping for them to be wrong
koromak
I just hope its powerful enough that Indies can target it along with the Steam Deck, rather than just hope an pray like they did for Switch 1's late lifecycle. The amount of <30fps indie titles on there was sad.
nottorp
Unity's fault?
Unity also kinda killed playing indie games on a laptop (at least on battery) on x86...
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MetaWhirledPeas
Man that's 100% on the indie dev. Most people don't buy indie games for cutting-edge graphics. You start pushing the envelope, you get what you get.
kbolino
The Switch was weak when it came out. Decent PCs from that same year can handle most of these games just fine. It's not really the developer's fault when the Switch is the only platform with issues, and they're usually not "pushing the envelope" in any way. The fault here is Nintendo's, they didn't prioritize support for ported games, though admittedly they couldn't really foresee the indie game boom, since it wasn't nearly as big of a deal at the time, especially in Japan.
First-party Nintendo titles are more or less the only games that actually manage to "push the envelope" on the Switch, and that's because they have the resources and experience to do it. Even then, some games end up constrained compared to the original vision, because the hardware can't handle it no matter how much insider knowledge you have about how it works and how to use it right.
BobaFloutist
What a bizarre thing to say. People buy indie games for all sorts of different reasons, and sometimes it's the beautiful art style.
wslh
> I am curious about the specs, but honestly don't care much.
The specs seems to be leaked here <https://thegamepost.com/nintendo-switch-2-full-specs-appears...>
TL;DR
- CPU: Arm Cortex-A78C 8 cores Unknown L1/L2/L3 cache sizes
- GPU: Nvidia T239 Ampere 1 Graphics Processing Cluster (GPC) 12 Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) 1534 CUDA cores 6 Texture Processing Clusters (TPC) 48 Gen 3 Tensor cores 2 RTX ray-tracing cores
- RAM: 12 GB LPDDR5
joshstrange
At this point I'd be hard pressed to consider this over my Steam Deck. We will see the specs later but I doubt it will really compete processing-wise or screen-wise.
The openness (full arch desktop) of the Steam Deck is also awesome while having a great UI that you never have to leave if you don't want to.
EDIT: I mistakenly called it "fedora desktop", my bad
parsimo2010
For the last few generations (since the Wii), you don't buy a Nintendo for the processing power. They haven't competed on processing power since the Gamecube. After the Gamecube generation, you bought a Nintendo for the exclusive games and that was it. Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, and others. Nintendo knows that their draw is just the games, and uses a lot of lawyers to make sure that normal gamers can't play those games on the Steam Deck. If you want to play what Nintendo has to offer on the Steam Deck you have to install an emulator and Nintendo has made sure that normal people would rather drop $300 on a Switch instead of risk legal issues.
Edit: I suppose that some people would also say the intuitive controls (motion control introduced on the Wii, dual screens (and touchscreen) on DS and WiiU, and detachable controllers on the Switch) have some draw, but those features have often been under-utilized except on a few titles.
joshstrange
I agree with you, for most people the Switch is the better/easier option if they are just looking to play a Nintendo-exclusive. Emulators aren't that difficult to set up on Steam Deck and you can easily launch the games from the Steam UI but nothing beats the plug and play of the Switch and double-y so if you are playing networked games.
cdaringe
This take is correct as the primary measure. Its certainly why I bought one!
However computing juices really started to matter to me since that first buy …8 years ago? Ive been told this by other switch owners too. Some xplatform games get ported to switch and do end up being worse. Witcher 3, which ive beaten on switch, was repurchased on PC to play over steamlink because the switch was slow/choppy/lossy. Switch1 was precovid. Id imagine that many of us now want BOTH. Great content and great specs
irrational
Isn't the point of owning a switch to play games that aren't on the Steam Deck? Zelda, Mario, etc.?
numpad0
One could in theory switch from Steam to Switch platform, rebuying everything. Doesn't make a ton of sense from PC gamer standpoint but that's PC gamer standpoint.
joshstrange
With emulators those games can also be played on the Steam Deck.
SecretDreams
Which is also a gray area. I personally am fine with it for older, depreciated consoles. But I won't emulate current gen games unless I'm also buying the game.. especially on the Nintendo platform where the games still have some "magic" to them, compared to the more generic games on other platforms that prioritize graphics over seemingly all other attributes.
xyzzy_plugh
Sure, but you cannot play online, though. You can't trade Pokemon for example. Tetris 99 got a lot of play in our house. It heavily depends on what you're chasing.
basfo
Obviously there isn't a switch 2 emulator yet, and probably will be a while until one is released.
The challenge will not be hardware emulation (if it's a nvidia tegra 2 based SOC that will be easy) but hack the OS/security to make it usable.
So don't expect to play mario kart 9 on your steam deck anytime soon.
Edit: with easy i don't mean that it will not demand a really top of the line computer to run it. But that isn't completely undocumented or custom hardware, like i don't know, ps3 or sega saturn.
cmcconomy
you can see why they are so aggressively pursuing emulators
tapoxi
SteamOS is Arch, Bazzite is Fedora if you want a more Fedora experience.
I agree mostly because I find myself playing a lot of smaller games these days, and it's much easier for devs to release and patch their games on Steam than it is a Nintendo platform. They also have a much friendlier refund policy.
For the masses though, a Nintendo system just works. I can hand a Switch to my daughter and know she can play Nintendo games with little bullshit, it's easy to play couch co-op, the parental controls are very solid, etc.
In terms of hardware it's ARM and Nvidia, which is a solid foundation, and Nintendo titles look great without being technically demanding. I fully expect to see a 60 FPS Zelda game that uses DLSS upscaling to look great on my 4K TV. The Steam Deck is somewhat limited by FSR2.
joshstrange
> SteamOS is Arch, Bazzite is Fedora if you want a more Fedora experience.
Oops, edited, thank you!
> I agree mostly because I find myself playing a lot of smaller games these days
Same here, I play mostly indie <$20 games and have a blast doing it. These games would (almost) never launch on the Switch (or any console). Either that or I'm playing games that would never work well on the Switch (like Factorio, yes I know there is a port and I've also tried on my steam deck and it sucks, you need a mouse/keyboard IMHO).
> For the masses though, a Nintendo system just works. I can hand a Switch to my daughter and know she can play Nintendo games with little bullshit, it's easy to play couch co-op, the parental controls are very solid, etc.
Agreed, this is huge, I wouldn't recommend a steam deck to the average person, just tech people mostly.
thedufer
I have both and they certainly each have their place. The Steam Deck has a much wider variety of games and can handle heavier graphics loads, but it is too heavy to be all that comfortable for handheld use, and the Switch is in my mind the undisputed champion of local multiplayer (more portable controllers, controller connections Just Work, good variety of local multiplayer games, etc).
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tedunangst
Maybe somebody wants to play assassins creed without uplay bullshit.
codruterdei
I hate to be the “um.. actually” guy, but isn’t steamdeck running on read only Arch system rather than Fedora? I have one but I only game on it.
joshstrange
Oops, edited, thank you!
VyseofArcadia
I don't like the aesthetic as much as the Switch 1. Looks a little too sleek, too monochrome, not Nintendo-y enough. Other than the splash of color around the thumbsticks it looks like any number of those handheld Steam Deck-alikes that have been coming out.
That said I always wait for the special Zelda editions of Nintendo's consoles, so I don't know that I have standing to complain.
makeitdouble
The current Switch had an alternative monochrome (grey) version from the start, so I guess there's a chance the alternative version of the new one would be colorful.
talles
Nintendo is not Nintendo-y enough for a while now. The switch system UI is bland and on launch the gray switch was the one being presented.
Johanx64
It's so odd to see Nintendo who hasn't competed on hardware specs for decades to release new console without atleast some gimmick(s) to sell their severely underpowered hardware.
Absolute zero gimmicks and zero excitement.
I personally dont care for gimmicks, but I expect them from Nintendo.
CitrusFruits
People are speculating that you can use the controllers like a computer mouse. You can see an allusion to that towards the end of the video.
RajT88
Speaking of - does anyone know of an HTPC frontend which duplicates the look and feel of the Wii menu?
KeplerBoy
Who even runs HTPCs these days?
VyseofArcadia
Yeah, I am not a big fan of the Switch UI. They really took out the "surprise and delight" compared to the Wii U and 3DS. Very bland and straightforward, and yet somehow awfully slow and laggy.
jncfhnb
I disagree. I find it delightful. The sounds are awesome.
bayindirh
I personally like the new color scheme. It says "I'm mature now, but still playful". Also, all black is less distracting when you're trying to concentrate on a bigger screen which needs you to move your eyeballs.
Also, the new controllers look more "freedom friendly", if you pardon the pun. IOW, they iterated them so that they're more useful when they are detached.
VyseofArcadia
I prefer just "playful" to "mature but still playful". Something about the straightforwardness of "this is a toy for people of all ages, but it is still a toy" speaks to me.
bayindirh
Your taste/view is as valid and correct as mine.
If these things could be standardized, we would have only one design for every category of item, possibly from different brands.
Since it can't, we have this thing called design and art, which is a good thing :)
kxrm
> Also, the new controllers look more "freedom friendly", if you pardon the pun. IOW, they iterated them so that they're more useful when they are detached.
I am a little concerned about that connector for the controls. I hope they have designed it to be sturdy. After working on broken Switch 1s a lot of USB C ports were abused by users.
soco
I only know a few users but they all (three, one being my kid) have covered their console in stickers, so that monochrome is completely hidden.
dblohm7
** N64 has entered the chat
duxup
I was pretty skeptical about the original Switch but bought it on a whim after being laid off.
It quickly became one of my favorite gaming consoles. The ability to play anywhere didn’t seem like a big deal until I could do it.
I have zero interest in being tied to a single spot like the traditional console experience now.
_fat_santa
The Switch was the first device where i saw how well the mobile + docked system worked and it was my favorite device until I got a Steam Deck. The Deck is killer IMO because it takes the same form factor of the Switch, gives you more power and no restrictions on games.
xyzzy_plugh
From a usability perspective, the Steam Deck is pretty good but the Switch blows it out of the water. Fast boot times, you don't need to restart it all the time, games don't crash frequently, controllers just work, it just slots into its dock, a much simpler UI, and no need to futz around with Proton.
The Steam Deck is cool but I waste infinitely more time dicking around with it than the Switch, where it just works. The Switch is the best console I've ever owned.
irrational
No restrictions, except you can't play the Zelda, Mario, etc. games.
markgreene
cloud gaming has given me this same revelation. It's as portable as a Switch but the gaming experience isn't limited by the hardware in hand. Connectivity is important for the experience, though.
brink
Streaming videos, leasing cars, cloud gaming, spotify, are all great until the distributor takes it away.
I prefer to own my things. The sense that something is "mine" increases the pleasure of using something for me.
It probably stems from my acquired lack of trust in people. The idea that there's a suit in a high-rise building that spends their days thinking about how to exploit my continued enjoyment of a title by raising the fee, or not addressing congestion hours, or retracting the title when the contract is up and renewing would cost too much, or putting a clause in the service agreement that strips me of my right to sue them if I lose an arm in their amusement park, bothers me.
machinekob
cloud gaming is good if you live close to the servers and don't care about graphics, but playing with +60-100ms for every action feels very bad. It almost feels like playing on 15-20 fps PC and quality of streaming video is always a problem compared to native quality maybe AV1 will fix it.
jeffhuys
7ms latency, 4k120fps with geforce now. 10ms on wifi. I'm not kidding.
It's ALMOST perfect. I play BF1 through it. Try it once (I believe they still have the "free for 1hr per session, infinite sessions"? That's what sold it to me).
I can play very intensive games (graphically) on my macbook on the couch. It's amazing, and I couldn't believe the 10ms on wifi. It's mind-blowing.
BUT I live near Amsterdam, where a server cluster is.
Also, about the graphics: I'm borrowing a 4080 every time. Everything is on max. If you're in a very (very) hard scene for compression, then yeah, you'll see (very little) artifacts. But I run it on 75mbit, and that's a LOT.
joseda-hg
I have gigabit, but no servers that are close, it's... rough
koromak
Yeah my experience has been thats its basically unplayable. I'm the kind of person who refunds when a game is <60fps though.
duxup
Yeah I gave GeForceNow a run and I really liked it. There are limits but I like just firing up a game regardless of platform.
ToucanLoucan
The Switch is genuinely one of the last pieces of hardware I was really excited about, and I can't say that about much anymore. It's extremely well put together, I've repaired mine a number of times with no issues (honestly opening anything made in Japan is a joy, the engineering is so good) and the specs leave a lot to be desired, which is unfortunate, but at the same time, you wouldn't know it while using it. The XBox is such a curmudgeonly slow experience to use, everything in the menus takes forever to load, the dash jerks and lags, and it's just like... this machine can run Halo Infinite, why does it struggle so damn hard with just... boxes and jpegs?
The Switch has a similar issue occasionally in the store application, but outside of that, settings are snappy, updates are practically instant, it turns on and off so quickly. It's what consoles are supposed to be.
And honestly in this same vein, the PS5 is also bloody impressive, but that impressiveness came with an impressive price too. The Switch costing as little as it did and still holding it's own is so cool.
ben7799
We have a switch and an XBox and after liking the 360 back in the day the newer XBoxes just make me want to tear my hair out. They sold us all on bigger and bigger hardware to get rid of load times and they ended up with the system with the worst load times going all the way back to the 70s. Sometimes it seems like it takes 10 minutes to start up and actually play a game, and then there the updates.
My son got a Forza Horizon game for Xmas and it immediately said it needed to download 128GB from the internet before he could play it. With the way it worked out he didn't get to play it on Christmas day as it never finished downloading before we had to go leave to visit relatives.
Just a horrific experience compared to Switch.
erwincoumans
Except for the drifting joycons problems. We had to replace many. Hope Switch2 fixes that drift.
bombcar
I kind of like the joy con issue, as it means I can send the controllers back to Nintendo and get them fixed for free, even when the problem isn't the joycon - it's the kids destroying the controller.
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/region/d/joycon...
(Nintendo has always had excellent support - I remember getting a Gamecube refurbished long after the Wii was everywhere).
dasKrokodil
The new one is rumored to feature hall-effect sticks on the Joycons which would hopefully solve that issue.
ToucanLoucan
Honestly I swapped them myself both in the Joycons and in the Pro controller a couple times each over the years. The modules cost like $15 through Amazon or Ebay, and unlike the XBox controller, they're separate modules with a ribbon connector instead of soldered in, which makes replacing them a breeze.
criddell
I hope I'll be able to pre-order one. I don't even care if they ship it right away. Promise me one within the first 2 or 3 years and I would be happy.
I know I'm going to want one and I know they are going to be snapped up by scalpers and be hard to buy at first. Fine. I just don't want to go through the stupid check Amazon, then GameStop, then BestBuy, then Walmart dance. Just let me order one and then not worry about it.
locallost
I read recently their plan is to produce enough so they are always in stock.
alienreborn
Relevant: https://www.nintendo.com/successor/en-us/index.html
Nintendo Direct focused on Switch 2: Apr 2nd.
Looks like joy-cons will have 'mouse-like' functionality and there's a 'C' on right joy-con but its functionality is not reveled. New Mario Kart showcased would probably be one of the first exclusives.
basfo
That was a new mario kart? it looked like mario kart 8 to me.
arnaudsm
A few details are quite different from 8, notably the boost and character animations, it's definitely a new game.
Marketing will be difficult, MK8 already peaked graphically and has 96 tracks, and will still work on Switch 2. I hope they'll find real selling points for MK9.
dev0p
Would have not surprised me if it's actually Mario Kart 8 2. (Technically that's already what Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is, so, actually, it would be Mario Kart 8 3).
I mean, at this point it makes little sense for them to start from scratch, releasing a newer game but with much less than the enormous amount of content provided by MK8D + DLC would seem like a very noticeable downgrade, so just revamping the old one would be a practical move, though I don't think fans would be happy with that.
MK8 was mostly flawless gameplay wise, how can it be improved? But at this point one has no choice but to trust Nintendo's ability to come up with surprises.
There are certainly some ways they can, I'd love to see a 100 man race or something crazy like that.
elaus
There are 24 starting positions visible while MK8 only supported 12-player races.
ErneX
Donkey Kong has a new design, it’s definitely the new game.
chomp
Karts look different from 8
manojlds
Leaks say C is Campus, equal to the PS share button.
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wodenokoto
I was honestly a bit disappointed this wasn't revealed in a Nintendo Direct.
"Nintendo Direct: New games in 2025" would have been the perfect setup for a "and one more thing"-moment.
bogwog
> "and one more thing"-moment
That's so cliche and cringe nowadays, but the reason they didn't wait to do that is probably because of all the leaks. The specs, the name, photos of the console and internal components all leaked. Even the fan renders people were making turned out to be pretty damn accurate (https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/1i008os/nin...)
mingus88
Calling anything “cringe” is pretty self-referential. This slang just makes me imagine a bunch of genZ folk wincing nonstop with the heads in their phones. Must be exhausting.
As long as the internet has existed, we have been lampooning corporate keynotes. The gaming industry does this every cycle, trying to hype up incremental updates as if it’s the best thing to ever get released. See you again in a few years!
jjice
I’m glad to see Nintendo found a form factor that’s kind of gimmicky that actually worked. The Wii and Wii U were too gimmicky, but portability was a great choice. I’m also glad to see backwards compatibility.
I’m excited to see what kind of hardware improvements have been made. The switch came out in March 2017, just about 8 years ago. Just due to the way Nintendo games have their animated charm, they’re able to make their games look excellent on that hardware still. That said, I’d love to see how good a Zelda game looks on some new hardware.
darkwizard42
The Wii was on the of the best selling consoles of all time? I believe only surpassed by the PS2.
Is the gimmicky a personal opinion or something you believe didn’t resonate with customers?
jjice
"Gimmicky" in the sense that they used movement controls and that's non-standard in the industry and went away mostly afterwards. I'm considering anything that isn't a traditional stationary control (keyboard + mouse or controller) as "gimmicky" or out of the ordinary.
In terms of sales, you're absolutely right - the Wii crushed it. I'd be curious to know about usage and software sales though. Maybe I'm wrong (very possible), but almost everyone I knew had a Wii at some point, but they didn't use it outside of a family toy with a few games when they first got it. I'd still consider that a win for Nintendo compared to less sales, but I'd imagine the average Xbox 360 or PS3 had a lot more software sales per console.
bsimpson
The Wiimotes were a clear influence on the Joy-Cons.
Nintendo still uses motion controls; they just made them portable and more resilient with gyros instead of IR.
threetonesun
I believe the Wii had the best or second best attach rate for a Nintendo console (how many games sold per console sold). It lived a long time and had a ton of good releases.
ChoGGi
Looks like the DS and switch both sold about 50m more units.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_co...
darkwizard42
Yes, great source. filter that by Home vs the mobile category to see it is only beat by PlayStation.
You could argue the Switch is a home console as well.
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setgree
Fifth best selling of all time and most successful of its generation, per Wikipedia.
jsheard
> That said, I’d love to see how good a Zelda game looks on some new hardware.
Hopefully they'll go back and update their major Switch titles to leverage the new hardware. BOTW and TOTK look fantastic in an emulator with the resolution and framerate cranked much higher than the original Switch hardware could handle, even without updating any of the assets.
jjice
I personally don't have much faith that Nintendo will do that, _but_ I hope I'm wrong. That would be wonderful. Also just removing some of the lag from those games (and the Link's Awakening remake was pretty bad) would be a big win.
xnx
The Wii was a huge success and the Wii U was a step toward the Switch, which combines the best of both of those consoles.
bogwog
> which combines the best of both of those consoles.
Minus the dual screen of the Wii U, which was awesome. It'd be cool if the Switch 2's dock could work independently of the console, so that you could have a reverse Wii U- experience with it. The dual screen setup can be a neat gimmick for gameplay, but it's biggest strength is the convenience that comes from having a second screen closer to your face. You can have less visual clutter on the main screen, and reduce the amount of menus players need to click through.
ARandumGuy
TBH other then a few neat local multiplayer stuff in NintendoLand, there really wasn't much that actually utilized the dual screen in a way that actually enhanced the game. You couldn't quickly swap between the screens like you could on the DS, because the screens were different distances away and required re-focusing your eyes. This meant that most gamepad usages played the same as if you just pressed a button to bring up your inventory or switch views or whatever.
And that's before you take into account the fact that the biggest titles on the Wii U (Mario Kart and Smash Bros) didn't use the second screen at all. The second screen was a gimmick, and a gimmick that was exhausted pretty quickly.
WillAdams
That would be an interesting use of the USB connector at the top --- plug into the Dock and use the Switch as a gamepad à la the Wii U while playing on the TV.
jncfhnb
I’m fairly certain I remember them suggesting that the original switch was capable of doing this but then they either never granted access to it in the dev kit or they just never had it end up getting used in any noteworthy games.
Nintendoland for the Wii U was _very_ fun in my memory. It was the only title that I remember leveraging the asymmetry of information that different players can have for local multiplayer.
xnx
A feature they could still possibly have snuck in would be the ability to cast a feed from the handheld to a TV.
endemic
I really loved some of the multiplayer games on Wii U that took advantage of the gamepad. Completely brilliant to have one "special" player with the gamepad + second screen vs. the rest of the plebs with Wiimotes.
Terretta
> I’m glad to see Nintendo found a form factor that’s kind of gimmicky that actually worked.
I don't quite understand this comment. Parents will be unable to tell the difference (like parents buying their kids Xbox One S when Xbox Series S came out, really bad naming increment with form factor so similar), and other comments here note this Switch 2 is a regression to less quirk.
What's the gimmicky part of this that caught your eye you feel like they found in Switch 2?
jjice
My words definitely could've been better. I was referring to "portability" as the gimmick here since it's not the norm in the industry for primary console. Nintendo did handhelds for years, but that was also a secondary thing to their primary consoles. Having their only console also be handheld was what I was referring to as the gimmick here, but I understand the argument that that's not a gimmick.
As for naming, I think it'll be fine since they're using numbers. I'm not in the position of a middle aged parent who's getting a gift for a child, but the fact that Sony has successfully done it for this long makes me feel that it'll work.
Add a letter to the end is awful though. It took me a bit to nail down the Series X vs Series S Xboxs (granted, I haven't owned an Xbox in over a decade). The Wii U definitely confused people as well.
bombcar
The portability was amusing but then turned out to be absolutely phenomenal (and likely resulted in multiple sales to individual households).
It both saved them from having to work out what to do with the handhelds, and introduced parents to "the kids can just bring it with them".
I have an Xbox Series X and I'm still not sure I got "the right one" but since I got it as a glorified blurry player that can also play games maybe, it's fine as is.
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sylens
Relieved that they are just iterating instead of trying to go for something radically different like they did. Everybody is pretty happy with the current feature set, just add some stuff and get a nice power upgrade in there and you're all set for another 6 years.
k__
I'm a bit sad. They could at least make the controls a bit funny.
donatj
A little sad about the lack of a rail compatible with charging existing controllers. Hopefully it's compatible with current gen controllers anyway given how expensive they are.
One of my favorite parts about the Xbox Series generation of consoles is that it's fully compatible with the previous Xbox One controllers.
It would be amazing if they could get their multi-gen multi-console save-sync to work nearly as well as Microsoft's so I could switch back and forth between my existing Switch and Switch 2 seamlessly but I doubt that's in the cards, this is Nintendo were talking about.
mobiledev2014
I might throw a party to smash my joy cons. Some of the worst quality control in my long history of owning hardware, and from a company previously famous for that trait. Good riddance.
_fat_santa
It always shocked me that for how bad the joycons were, the "Pro Controller" was one of the best controllers I've ever used. I don't know how they managed to nail one and get the other so wrong.
mobiledev2014
That's their actual standard and hopefully it has returned to the "default" controller(s). I think they just flew too close to the sun in terms of trade-offs with the Switch 1 joy cons. Not possible to make them good enough at that price at that size at the time of release
ChocolateGod
The rumour has it the older joycons can still be used wirelessly, just not physically connected.
isk517
This would be extremely welcome news. Local multiplayer has always been Nintendo's bread and butter, so being able to keep using controllers from the previous system is a huge boon. Also means not having to invest in a new 'Pro' controller hopefully.
jabl
So how are you going to charge them then? Have the old Switch 1 lying around as a charging station?
fredoralive
The version of the grip that you buy as an accessory (HAC-012) can charge the joycons. However the pack in one (HAC-011) can't.
Looking around, it appears that Nintendo have also released an official "Joy-con charging stand (2-way)", suspiciously it seems they only launched it in October 2024, when various 3rd party chargers have been around for years.
There's also the official AA battery packs. Yes, really.
flutas
You can get standalone charging docks for them, but I agree it kinda sucks.
I wouldn't be surprised to see new functionality that would pin games to the switch 2 controllers though, gotta sell new accessories.
op00to
I have multiple charging "controller docks" that you can plug the joycons into and then use them like a two-stick-controller and charge via usb-c.
ChocolateGod
You can buy chargers for joycons
werdnapk
Wasn't expecting it to actually be called "Switch 2", but I'm glad they stuck to a name that makes sense.
Jach
It's possibly the most normal successor name they've ever chosen. I like it. I'm picturing someone suggesting "Switch U" and getting thrown out the window like in that meme comic, even though he's often used as the voice of reason...
xethos
I still like Famicom > Super Famicom as the best successor name, but having to go back that far to find some competition for naming probably says something.
marpstar
"Super Switch" would've been pretty bad-ass.
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nzach
I was also expecting they would fumble marketing again and call the new console something like 'Switch U', but it seems they really learned their lesson there.
antifa
Or worse, "New Switch".
kwanbix
Agree. PlayStation 1...5 has worked well for Sony. XBOX is a mess (I am an XBOX guy myself).
VyseofArcadia
The problem with Xbox naming is that names are both inconsistent and too similar to each other. Aside from the Wii/Wii U debacle, Nintendo console names haven't been consistent, but they have been distinct. It's easy to remember that the GameCube and the Wii aren't the same thing.
Xbox, though, it's just the word Xbox followed by arbitrary numbers, maybe with the letter S or X thrown in for fun. I have no idea why they thought Xbox Series X wouldn't confuse people right after the Xbox One X.
foodevl
They were screwed from the start...
The Xbox came out when the PS2 did. When it came time for the next generation, Sony went with the obvious PS3. Microsoft of course couldn't compete with an "Xbox 2" vs a "PS3", and they couldn't skip right to "Xbox 3", so they called it the "Xbox 360", which was frankly genius because it had the 3 there anyway and put it on the same level in consumers' eyes.
But after that it all fell apart -- they had no good options. They still couldn't jump to "Xbox 4". Maybe "720" would have worked. Someone decided to have a clean break and restart at "One" but of course that fell apart immediately at "Two". So another clean break to "Series..". And by that point it's so screwy they've lost any chance of fixing it...
azalemeth
(I am still trying to work out if the 360 was named after the 360º ring of red on the power light that it so often would produce...)
drcongo
This is from the people who brought you "Microsoft Windows 10 Home Single Language 32-bit" though.
ziml77
I'm glad they finally learned to use sensible names. I guess it took the failure of the Wii U for them to realize they should just keep it simple if they want to be sure it's easy for consumers to understand what the product is.
0-bad-sectors
I think this is because it is kinda an iteration instead of a totally new wild gimmick.
ginko
They could have at least gone with "Super Switch" or something like that.
nzach
They tried something similar with the New Nintendo 3DS but a lot of people got confused.
Sure, "new" is probably one the worst words you could use. But I don't think "super" would be better. And even if they did use "super" how do you name the next console ?
ginko
Switch⁶⁴ :)
xnx
Ultra
ErneX
I wanted Super Nintendo Switch :) but Switch 2 is fine.
yajjackson
"Switcheroo"
wat10000
It seems like the days of revolutionary consumer electronics are over.
This looks nice, for sure. But it’s really more of the same. Not surprising. It does surprise me that there’s such emphasis on it, though. There’s the name, of course, and then the entire video is based around “it’s the same thing but a little better.”
Game console updates used to be big deals. The SNES was a revolution. PS2 was huge. Now… PS5? What’s different from PS4, again? Is there a 6? What’s different about that?
I don’t blame Nintendo or the others. I have no idea what they could do here they would be revolutionary. I think the design space has just been thoroughly explored by now and that’s where we are.
This pattern repeats all over the place. TVs are maxed out, with better visual quality than people care about, and size limited by wall space. Computers get a little faster every year. This year’s phones are last year’s phones with a minor performance bump and slightly better cameras. And again, I don’t see what they can do better, and that’s probably how it has to be at this point.
But it’s still a little shocking to see a company lean so far into the theme of “we made incremental improvements to this thing we released 8 years ago.”
isk517
>The SNES was a revolution
Nintendo has actually stated they view the SNES as a evolution of the NES. They have directly stated their hardware development cycle goes Revolution>Evolution>Revolution. Considering that the Switch was considered one of their revolutionary leap (their first hybrid console) it is no surprise the Switch 2 is a simple evolution of that concept. If their next console is another iteration of the Switch THEN it is safe to say they are no longer aiming to revolutionize their hardware.
hedora
I’d be curious to know when they said that. It sounds like revisionist history to me.
Based on the switch launch video, the delta between the NES and SNES was much higher than Switch -> Switch 2.
Here’s an analogous snes ad, which spends most of its time showing off 3d and increased sprite counts:
isk517
I apologize, I tried to find the interview were this was stated but unfortunately search engines are terrible now and no matter how hard I try I only get news about the Switch 2 or old stories about when the Wii has code named Revolution. Feel free to not take my word that this was actually stated.
MetaWhirledPeas
> Game console updates used to be big deals. The SNES was a revolution. PS2 was huge.
There are two categories of "big deal". The SNES and PS2 were big deals simply because game graphics had so much headroom for improvement. Now that the low-hanging fruits of color palette, resolution, frame rate, texture quality, animation quality, and geometric complexity have all been squeezed, the improvements are more asymptotic.
The other "big deal" category is gimmicks. I would argue that while it is a hallmark of Nintendo, the gimmicks have flopped as often as not. Most of Nintendo's big sellers were fairly conventional. (The most glaring exceptions being the original Game Boy, the Wii, and the Switch.) I'm glad they do the gimmicks, but I'm also glad they don't only do the gimmicks.
Al-Khwarizmi
But those are three hells of exceptions (can you actually do that in English? I was trying to pluralize "a hell of an exception").
They are the 3rd, 4th and 7th best selling consoles of all time. And you forgot the dual screen in the DS (2nd best selling of all time).
Maybe many of the gimmicks flopped, but others wildly succeeded and Nintendo wouldn't be what it is without them. In fact, it probably wouldn't even make consoles by now, following the fate of Sega.
hibikir
This all comes down to what the hardware improvements can mean in practice. It's not as if hardware isn't moving up, but that the new kinds of things double the hardware unlocks are much smaller than they used to be.
This is best seen on the PC market. What a gaming desktop today has running on it is, compute wise, unimaginably stronger than the best available 10-20 years ago. The increases in hardware just keep coming. But there's limits on how much more you can get out of being able to push more polygons, or to put more pixels on screen. We can do all kinds of extra photorealistic things in real time that before would have to be done only in movies, and rendered in server farms for weeks at a time. But the increased difficulty doesn't quite match how impressive the extra effects are.
You can also notice this by just playing old games, and seeing how they hold up. We can make 2d pixel art games that are much better than what a SNES could do, but many of those games still hold up just fine. Meanwhile most 3d games of the Playstation and even the PS2 era are downright painful, because the increases in power between generations back then lead to big practical differences in capability. A ps5 is much stronger than a ps4, hardware wise, but it didn't unlock much at all. All the extra power can get you cooler reflections on cyberpunk, and you can go even further with a PC that has over $1000 in video cards in it. But those reflections and atmospheric effects are eating up as much hardware as the rest of the game.
oneeyedpigeon
> But it’s still a little shocking to see a company lean so far into the theme of “we made incremental improvements to this thing we released 8 years ago.”
It's certainly more 'shocking' to see Nintendo do it than, say, Microsoft or Sony. But Nintendo hasn't always introduced huge new changes with a console bump — NES->SNES wasn't particularly revolutionary, and there were certainly no gimmicks there. I think it's a very understandable reaction to a) the Wii U b) the enormous success of the Switch
wat10000
NES->SNES didn’t do much with the form factor or the controls, but technologically it was an enormous leap. That’s the sort of thing that just can’t happen anymore, since video game technology is pretty much maxed out. You can always make things a little bit prettier, or have a little better framerate, but nothing too interesting.
I suppose VR/AR is the one area where something big could still happen. The current state of the art there is far from the “mostly limited by the size of your wall” stage.
corytheboyd
I feel like VR would have “happened with the masses” by now given that the quest is wireless, excellent quality, and cheap. Personally I think it did, and it’s a success, it’s just that it has a lower ceiling because it’s an awkward rectangle that you strap to your face.
There is also, IMO, a huge software quality problem with VR.
I am baffled as to why all the first person games don’t copy Alyx’s control scheme, it’s the only one that feels correct to use. The rest of the first person games feel awful to play, once you get past the gimmick of “wow cool”.
Music/rhythm games work really well for VR, but that’s always going to be a niche market. I play beat saber all the time, it’s fantastic.
Everything else seems to be sandbox games. Fucking sandbox games. They’re funny the first time, but you can only throw objects so many times before the magic is lost, you just wish there was an actual game there to play.
I love VR, and I hope developers continue to innovate with it, but it’s never going to overtake console gaming, it’s just too different.
I don’t get why we think AR is going to be any different for games. Why would I want to see my living room while playing a game? VR puts you in whole other worlds. It’s… that simple, I think.
oneeyedpigeon
VR and, at some point, 3D.
bsimpson
The Super Nintendo had totally new controllers and was top-loading. The UX was substantially different than the original Nintendo's VCR-style design.
oneeyedpigeon
Those are very minor 'gimmicks' compared to handheld, touch control, motion control, or hybrid.
surgical_fire
The Famicom was top loading, too.
NES was only side loading because in the US Nintendo was trying to distance itself from the consoles that came before.
mcphage
They did release a top-loading NES as well, although it came out after the SNES.
surgical_fire
> PS2 was huge
PS2 was literally just an iteration on the PS1. More powerful console, DVD instead of CD, and that was it. Nothing really new there.
Hell, the Switch 2 is more innovative than the PS2 was in terms of iteration on a previous console.
wat10000
“More powerful” was enough to be a step change at the time. You’d get huge improvements in image quality, realism, and immersion.
Now, compare a new game with one from ten years ago. The new one looks a little better. Not much.
kypro
The graphics bump you'd see from next gen systems prior 2010 was massive. So big in fact that it would unlock new genres of games which weren't previously possible.
ps1 > ps2 was pretty huge too because I'd argue the ps2 marked the first generation of consoles where games could move away from pixelated cartoony characters and into photo-realistic graphics and just about pull it off.
Today you get better lighting and shadows, or slightly higher FPS which is nice, but it doesn't really change the types of games you can make in the way the ps2 did.
3pt14159
I've found more incredible improvements in AI than in consumer electronics these days. I'm still daily surprised at just how good ChatGPT is at understanding my pretty complex queries.
wat10000
Maybe that will be the next big thing in games. Finally deliver on the promise of living, breathing worlds, instead of breaking the illusion when the character scripts start to repeat and you realize “your choices matter” means you can pick from one of three different endings.
mingus88
I think this is it. Once a console can run an LLM you will see open world games with immersion that we’ve never seen before
Procedurally generated worlds are one thing but imagine exploring an endless world where you can talk to every NPC and never have the same conversation twice
wirthjason
I wonder if they have a new control technique up their sleeve. Innovative gameplay and pushing new control ideas is one of Nintendo’s signatures. That said, being the switch 2, not a new console, maybe they kept it the same and just upgraded the processing and graphics hardware.
Looking forward to more!
gyomu
Both controllers have optical sensors (visible in the trailer), confirming the rumors that they'll have mouse like functionality. Remains to be seen if games will actually bother to implement it or if it'll remain a curiosity that only a handful of titles support.
basfo
For action games doesn't look like a good option. But i think it will be used if it works well on any surface.
Probably there will be a resurgence of point and click adventure games pushed by the new mouse functionality (or even republish some old sierra/lucas arts stuff with mouse support).
Also may be useful for pc ports like simcity clones and strategy games (i could use that in civ).
Some propietary nintendo stuff will use it like mario maker or wario ware, some zelda dungeon probably will have a gimmick around it. And also some small indy third party stuff, like i don't know, mini motorways, things like that, will be built arround it.
makeitdouble
It could be nice for FPS.
The current motion controls for the pro controller work well, but a mouse + single hand controller setting could work as well.
Izkata
I'm hoping for an RTS comeback.
kuon
RTS and 4x could be way better with the use of a mouse.
delecti
All it does it confirm that they have something there. The Wii used a sensor to detect where it was pointing, the Switch had an IR camera for a variety of weird gimmicks, the NES and SNES had light-detecting "guns". Hell, it could even be an IR blaster like the Wii U Gamepad had, and not a sensor at all. We just don't know yet.
vel0city
The trailer shows the joycons sliding on that side with an additional attachment (see: 1:10). It seemed pretty obvious they were trying to hint at some kind of mouse-like optical tracking on a flat surface.
darkwizard42
I remember how fun it was to use that in Wii based Metroid Prime games. Hoping they return this feature in creative ways!
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oneeyedpigeon
Innovation is their way, but they're still burned a LOT by the Wii U. Now they've managed to find something that works, I think they'll stick with it for at least the Switch 2, maybe the 3 as well.
Trasmatta
The Switch wouldn't exist if they hadn't first experimented with that form factor with the Wii U. The innovation and risk of the Wii U paid off for them in the long run.
oneeyedpigeon
True, but I think they still wanted the U to actually sell better than it did. It was a case of too much innovation too soon, IMO — having an alternating "evolution/revolution" cycle makes a lot of sense.
Izkata
...there was also the GBA long before the Wii U. Less buttons but same form factor.
xnx
Wii U seems like it was a useful stepping stone to the Switch.
0xdada
Looks like the sliding controllers bit means that they will work like a computer mouse.
mcphage
It's probably too much to hope for to get more Labo sets, but a guy can dream, can't he?
xnx
Forgot all about Labo. The amount of wild experiments Nintendo has shipped is admirable.
mcphage
Yeah, definitely—it's my favorite thing about the company. Well, maybe second to their consistent level of quality. But seriously—the Labo piano used the IR camera to scan in waveforms to create new instruments. The VR kit had an elephant trunk mask to let you move around parts in a marble run game. Nintendo has a lot of wild experiments, and Labo takes that all to the next level.
And that's not getting into the quality of software for building the kits—way beyond any instructions that Lego has ever put out.
Happy to see that Nintendo is treating the switch more like how they traditionally handled their mobile platforms instead of their consoles.
Iterating instead of throwing out everything with each new version. There is a part of me that is going to miss the, do weird shit and see what works, Nintendo that brought us some really fun ideas. But a stable Nintendo just being able to continue putting out great games has its advantages.
I am curious about the specs, but honestly don't care much. The only real issue the Switch had was being able to keep up with some of the games put on it with FPS but it still had beautiful games (like Tears of the Kingdom). So as long as it is actually a decent spec bump I am happy and have zero care to compare it to the other consoles (but I am sure people are going too and scream that it is "underpowered").
The biggest thing I am curious about, will it be OLED since that will be disappointing to go back to non OLED from the OLED Switch. And Price.