In Kyoto Japan, the Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company known as Nintendo sold 141.32 million units worldwide of its 3rd most successful console – the Switch. The system came out 7 years ago and is still going strong. After these many years, Nintendo has announced its next console coming out in Q1 or Q2 2025. The console’s successor, the Switch 2.
While Nintendo has confirmed the Switch 2, it has yet to be officially announced. They have been informing the public that an announcement is coming mainly to stop the public from speculating about its pending release and to focus the rest of the 2024 and early 2025 on the current slate of games releasing on the original Switch. However, this won’t stop the media from their continued speculations and rumors.
What will be the new and better features made to the console over the one we have already? As mentioned, the media has started the rumors of what the specifications will be for the new Switch 2 and the spectrum of unconfirmed gossip varies depending on the source. A majority of the media publications are speculating that the performance of the Switch 2 will be similar to that of the Playstation 4. Other gossip articles include releases of popular platform titles like Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 (along with possibly the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6), Electronic Arts’ John Madden Football and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Nintendo titles speculated by the media include Mario Kart 9, the long awaited Metroid 4 and the next Legend of Zelda release.
One big question current Switch owners will want to know is if the Switch 2 will offer compatibility with the current line of Switch games. While Nintendo has not given any clues, Nintendo owners will remember that the Wii U was compatible with Wii games, the 3DS was compatible with DS titles and the DS accepted Gameboy cartridges, so the history of backward compatibility is there and will not really be a surprise if Nintendo supports the library of Switch titles on the upcoming Switch 2.
The price of the Switch 2, while purely speculation at this point, is expected to be around the same price as the original Switch. Nintendo does not have a history of releasing game systems with high prices as they target families as a big part of their history. It is worthy to note that Nintendo has never released a system at a price point of $400 dollars.
The design of the console for now is left for fans to expand their imagination till release. Either it looks nearly the same as its predecessor or an entirely different design.
While the media speculations and rumors will probably continue and more likely growing louder and wilder until Nintendo offers their official release details; one thing is for certain: The Nintendo Switch 2 will certainly mean that there will be a new generation of Mario & Luigi, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Wario, Metroid, Pikmin, and more games for years to come.