There’s mounting speculation Nintendo is opting to delay the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 until 2025 — to avoid the kind of supply chain issues that plagued the PS5 launch. That seems to be compounded by the news this week that the company is skipping Gamescom 2024. Instead, Nintendo told GamesIndustry.biz that players can “try out the games for Nintendo Switch as part of other Germany-wide events.”
My takeaway is there may be a quiet release calendar for the aging Switch in the latter half of the year as Mario & Co get ready for the jump to the next platform. What will that new platform look like? Probably it’ll be markedly similar to the current Switch, albeit with more power. It seems pretty certain the next Switch will run a custom Nvidia processor with a bump in RAM — possibly to 8GB — and (fingers crossed) a 4K output to take advantage of the best TVs.
What it almost certainly won’t have is the same kind of power as we’re likely to see in the PS5 Pro. A video game industry exec took some time out of running his consulting firm this week to tell Indy100 that the Nintendo Switch 2 will be “evolution not revolution."
George Osborn explained to the British publication that, "what we have heard is it's probably not likely to be wildly different from the original Switch — it's likely to be a bit of an upgrade, a bit of a bump.” Apparently, the Big N was showing upscaled versions of Breath of the Wild at last year’s Gamescom that had “towards the low end PS5 graphics”. Of course, the Japanese giant has denied any such thing and isn’t commenting at all on all these leaks.
But it’s fair to say the Switch 2 won’t be blowing away the competition when it comes to sheer computing power. And that’s totally okay. In fact, it’s been okay for almost two decades now since the launch of the Wii in 2006. Nintendo doesn’t compete on power, it competes on fun and that’s something that a large subset of gamers are all-to-happy to pay for.
Nintendo doesn’t compete on power, it competes on fun — and that’s something that a large subset of gamers are all-to-happy to pay for.
What’s more, the Switch 2 is surely going to continue the TV/handheld hybrid approach that won over gamers like me who don’t always have the time or household arrangement that grants them easy access to the TV. I want to be able to play what I can on my TV but finish off a Zelda shrine or a Mario Kart race on the go.
Furthermore, I think the masterstroke with the Switch was become the home for indie games that don’t require all the power of a PS5 or an Xbox Series X. There are so many little gems on the Switch — not to mention the mobile games I’d rather play on Nintendo’s platform than on my smartphone because of the excellent hardware. My one plea for the Switch 2 is that it’s backwards compatible for both my game library and the peripherals I’ve amassed. And if you haven’t picked yourself up a Switch Pro controller yet, it should be top of your wish list for 2024.
How Nintendo handles the transition to the new Switch is something I’m very interested to see. Breath of the Wild launched on both the Wii U and the Switch, passing the torch from old console to new. If the Switch 2 is similar to the first with backwards compatibility to boot, the transitional pain will be nonexistent — and millions of people will probably be quite happy to upgrade.
That’ll only be bolstered by a strong first-party line-up that Nintendo could trot out in early or mid 2025 if it’s scaling back for the latter half of 2024. In the meantime, I think the indie gems will continue to sustain the existing Nintendo Switch for several years yet.
Now, I’m aware that I’m coming at this from the POV of an older gamer with much less time on his hands, and much less patience or need for multiplayer online play. Give me thirty minutes with Zelda, Super Mario Odyssey and I’m a happy guy. I don’t need the latest Call of Duty deathmatch or 80-hour God of War to keep my thumbs pumped. So regardless of the power on offer from the next PlayStation or Xbox, I just can’t wait for the Nintendo Switch 2.
