A games industry analyst has weighed in on what the Nintendo Switch 2 will be like — and it’s good news for fans of the current Switch.
Serkan Toto of Kantan Games says the next Switch is "likely to be an iteration rather than a revolution,” in a 2024 predictions article by Gamesindustry.biz.
“Nintendo might add some bells and whistles to the device, but it will be similar to the current Switch,” he says. “And because there is Pokémon, and Pokémon is associated with handheld gaming, there is no way on earth Nintendo will drop the portability feature for their next big thing."
Nintendo stats show Pokémon Sword and Shield from 2019 has sold 26.02 million copies to date, while Pokémon Scarlet and Violet from 2022 sits at 23.23 million units. They sit at the sixth and seventh spots on Nintendo's best-selling Switch titles.
Toto also suggests the console will be a little more expensive than the current Switch, at $400, which may equate to UK pricing of £349.99-379.99.
A Nintendo Switch OLED costs £309.99 direct from Nintendo today. But what improvement could we see?
Nintendo Switch 2: what to expect
The current Nintendo Switch uses a processor from the Nvidia Tegra line, based on technology announced back in 2015. It’s mobile-phone style hardware, and quite ancient considering the progress made since in that area.
Analysis by Digital Foundry regarding a newer Nvidia chipset the next Nintendo Switch may well use suggests it will be able to handle advanced graphical techniques such as Ray Tracing. It also suggests it may have the frame-generation skills seen in the latest PC graphics cards. This can more than double the smoothness of gameplay, allowing for better visuals on more power-efficient hardware.
Sticking with Nvidia as the supplier of the brains suggests backwards compatibility with current Switch games should be possible. However, to date, Nintendo has only suggested the next generation will let you take over your Nintendo account, not necessarily your games.
“As for the transition from Nintendo Switch to the next generation machine, we want to do as much as possible in order to smoothly transition our customers, while utilising the Nintendo Account,” said Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa during a shareholder meeting in mid-2023.
Nintendo Switch 2 release date
But when will the Switch 2 arrive? Nintendo was reportedly planning on a mid-generation Switch Pro refresh a couple of years ago, but it was scrapped amid the chip shortage and Covid-19 pandemic.
Since then, we’ve heard all sorts of dates for the Switch 2, with March being one potential announcement option. In the same gamedindustry.biz predictions piece, though, Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis says he expects the console to arrive “towards the end of the year".
One report from October 2023 published by Resetera suggests the Nintendo Switch 2 may arrive in September 2024 in two versions: one able to play only downloaded games, the other with a cartridge slot.
