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Everything We Know About The Nintendo Switch 2

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John Walker
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Emily Spindler
Everything We Know About The Nintendo Switch 2

We know there’s going to be a Nintendo Switch 2 (or some similarly named follow-up to the Switch), mostly because the other option is Nintendo just hanging up its hat and walking off into the sea, and that’d be weird. Nintendo is, as ever, entirely mute on the subject, but rumours are reaching category five that the console giant’s next device will be appearing in time for the holiday season of 2024. With reports of developers seeing the Nintendo Switch 2 behind closed doors and tech manufacturers announcing the sudden need to produce vast numbers of LCD screens, it’s a good moment to collate everything we know so far about what to expect.

Latest Nintendo Switch 2 Leaks & News

When is the Nintendo Switch 2’s release date?

Well, the phrase bandied around by analysts, developers and other soothsayers is that the next Nintendo console could be coming in “the second half of 2024.” Which most likely means, November-ish. That’s the standard launch window for a new console, given it allows the enthusiasts the chance to strip the shelves day one, with hopefully enough time to have them refilled in time for the holiday season.

Will it really be called the Nintendo Switch 2?

Nintendo Switch 2
Image: Nintendo

The first thing to say is any new Nintendo console almost definitely won’t be called the “Nintendo Switch 2.” Nintendo has frequently iterated on its successful handheld designs, the DS becoming the DSi, the DSi XL, then eventually the succeeding 3DS and its own iterative generations. But they’ve never put a “2” on anything; they’re more likely to use a “U” or something equally peculiar. However, let’s stick with “Switch 2” for the sake of ease; people online are constantly campaigning for it to be called the Super Nintendo Switch, but we don’t want to get their hopes up.

Will a Nintendo Switch 2 be that different?

Of course, knowing what to expect from Nintendo is never that easy. For Sony or Microsoft’s forthcoming projects, you’d not get particularly good odds betting against both being in early design stages for beneath-TV boxes called the PlayStation 6 and Xbox Flowerpot 87, or whatever deranged name the behemoth concocts next. But Nintendo is the sort of company that might spring out of nowhere with a super-under-powered console that comes with a plastic sensor, operated by two remote controls; or a handheld gaming device with two screens, only one of them is a touchscreen, and it folds in half. They are…unpredictable.

The general thinking is that the success of the Switch is too vast to make any enormous changes over its own unique design when it comes to the Nintendo Switch 2. In 2017, we were all blinking in surprise at a dockable handheld device with controllers that fell off the sides. It was, as ever, wonderfully strange and innovative, and despite tech that was already out-of-date on its release, it’s held up and entertained us for seven years. It would seem an enormous risk, at this point and with such market saturation (the Switch is said to have sold 132 million units, outselling even the PS4’s lifetime sales, with time to go) to release something that didn’t at least feel compatible with the Switch. Analyst Dr. Serkan Toto told GI.biz in January 2024 that he believed the Nintendo Switch 2 would “be similar to the current Switch,” albeit with “some bells and whistles.”

It would also seem like some special kind of madness for Nintendo to step away from the hybrid model of the original Switch, where it docks as a standard console and lifts out as a portable gaming device, in a time where Sony’s trying to retro-fit the concept to its PS5, and Microsoft wants to achieve the same through mobile devices. Rumours are that this is the case.

Nintendo Switch 2
Image: Nintendo

The new Nintendo Switch may have one 8-inch screen, and only one

Nintendo is notoriously silent when it comes to new consoles, preferring to surprise audiences with the reveal and imminent release of its latest peculiar, form-twisting approach to gaming. The original Switch itself was not officially revealed until October 2016, ahead of its release in March 2017—and this was under the added pressure of the failure of the Wii U. Similarly, no one knew what the DS would look like until July 2004; the handheld device launched that November. There’s no reason at all to think Nintendo will change its ways for the Nintendo Switch 2, and we shouldn’t expect any serious announcements or technical details before this summer.

However, the Japanese company’s best efforts to remain enigmatic for each generation have always been thwarted by both leaks and inescapably public deals made with manufacturers. The Nintendo Switch 2’s most specific information so far has recently emerged via the latter, with Bloomberg’s report that Foxconn-owned Sharp Corp is supplying large numbers of 8-inch LCD screens to a Japanese company. While nothing is officially announced, and no one involved names, there really isn’t another option than this being for Nintendo’s next effort. The 8-inch screen is a jump up in comparison to the Switch’s 6.2-inch screen, and the 7-inch version on the Switch OLED.

This information, paired with how things have worked out historically, does suggest there aren’t any major surprises to come on the scale of a Nintendo Switch 2 coming with a second screen, or a clamshell design, or only operating underwater. Even Nintendo gave almost two years’ warning that the DS was going to be a two-screen device. However, it’s Nintendo, so we wouldn’t bet against being entirely wrong here. In fact, it would be delightful if we were.

What other tech can we expect from the Nintendo Switch 2?

Nintendo Switch 2
Image: Nintendo

Of course, you can’t just release a new Nintendo console and then wait for the games to arrive. If the Nintendo Switch 2 really is coming out at the pointy end of 2024, then development kits (modified versions of consoles, sometimes PC-based, that allow developers to interact with the hardware) will have to already be in the hands of games developers. Clearly, any developer Nintendo trusts at this stage with such secret information will be drowning in NDAs, specifically chosen with the goal of there being a broad range of top-quality games available on day one. (This doesn’t always work—ask the Xbox 360) However, this process is inevitably vulnerable to leaks.

We learned through GDC’s State of the Industry 2024 report that 8% of surveyed developers are currently working on games made for the Switch 2, and sources with devkits recently told VGC that the device would match the Switch’s option to operate in a portable mode.

Matching the information that Sharp Corp is doubling its output of LCD screens this year, developers also anonymously told VGC that the next Nintendo console would have a standard LCD display, and still use cartridges for games.

The other odd slip of information came about via the FTC’s investigations into Microsoft’s purchase of Activision. A heavily redacted document was released as part of the trial, in which Activision Blizzard execs met to talk about the “NG Switch,” during which its tech was described as similar to that in the PS4 and Xbox One.

Nintendo has never fought to be at the cutting edge of tech, preferring to launch with solid enough specs and letting the games do the innovating, but Gen 8 console comparisons seem surprisingly behind. However, Eurogamer has since reported that developers have seen something much more powerful behind closed doors, a device that can run Unreal 5 engine games, and even offer DLSS graphics. This would bring it more in line with something lagging just behind the PS5 or Series S, which is generally the spot Nintendo aims for.

Clearly, we’re expecting to see a lot more than the Switch’s measly 32GB of on-board storage in the Switch 2, but given support for SD cards, rather than the need for entire additional drives, it’s unlikely it’ll go over 256GB. We’re inclined to guess as low as 128GB. That’s of course tiny compared to the terabyte of SSD storage that comes with the PlayStation Slim.

How much will the Nintendo Switch 2 cost?

The best guess we have so far for a Nintendo Switch 2 retail price is around $US400 – for Aussies, that’s just about $600AUD. That’s the prediction of Dr. Serkan Toto, although it’s fair to say it’s a guess. A reasonable guess, given the original Switch launched at $US300 in 2017, and inflation alone puts that at $US375 today.

You may have noticed that when we’ve mentioned the rumours of an 8-inch LCD screen on the Nintendo Switch 2, there’s no mention of an OLED version, as was later launched for the Switch. Given that, should this prove accurate, the new Nintendo Switch device’s screen will be nearly two inches larger than the previous generation, Nintendo is likely picking LCD to keep down costs at launch, with intentions of launching a version of the Switch 2 with a fancier screen a couple of years down the track.

Will a Nintendo Switch 2 be backward compatible?

Nintendo Switch 2
Image: Nintendo

Sorry to be Captain Clickbait, but we don’t yet know if the Nintendo Switch 2 will be backward compatible. Nintendo has only once previously released a backward-compatible console: the Wii U. Even the 3DS wouldn’t play DS cartridges, and the dramatic cartridge shifts between other devices have ensured it’s impossible.

Yet, it just feels so unlikely it won’t be this time. As Switch sales are predicted to collapse in 2024, Nintendo will be desperate for customers to want to buy a new Nintendo device, and telling them their entire catalogue of games is now useless to them doesn’t feel like the right move. Especially given how user-friendly the Xbox Series and PS5 have been in this regard.

In a very rare acknowledgement of the concept of there being anything beyond the Switch, Nintendo’s U.S. president Doug Bowser said last October, speaking about an intention to likely allow users to keep using the same Nintendo account in the future, that the company wanted to “help ease that process or transition.”

Just sharing an account between devices is such a novelty for Nintendo; it does offer some hope that perhaps our games and progress might be “eased” over to the next Nintendo console, too.

Image: Nintendo, Kotaku

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