Thoughts on the Nintendo Switch 2

Between a rock and a Kart place

Last Wednesday: Nintendo finally unveiled more information about their upcoming successor to 2017’s Switch console. The presentation was just over an hour long and highlighted several features and games that will be playable at or shortly after launch. While they answered a lot of important questions, the presentation also left a couple significant gaps.

General specs

• 7.9” 1080p LED screen, 120 Hz HDR

• Up to 4K resolution with HDR in docked mode

• Magnetic JoyCon controllers with improved shoulder buttons and sticks (still not Hall-effect)

• “Mouse controls” another gimmicky way to use the JoyCons like a mouse peripheral

• Noise-cancelling microphone, sturdier stand, and an addition USB-C port

• 256 GB internal storage with expansion via microSD Express memory cards

• $450 USD or $500 USD bundle with Mario Kart World

• Releasing June 5th 2025

GameChat

• Nintendo is FINALLY joining the 21st century and integrating a voice and video chat system into the Switch 2

• External camera peripheral is required for video chat, but voice chat will be picked up from the on-console microphone

• You can also livestream your gameplay to a GameChat room, but the demos that Nintendo showed off looked very choppy and low quality

GameShare

• Kind of piggybacking on the previous week’s Nintendo stream, they announced that the Switch and Switch 2 will be implementing a digital content transference system to loan out digital copies of games to Nintendo family members

• You can also link up to two Switch/Switch 2 consoles and share games freely between them as if they were on a physical cartridge

• This week they went a step further and demoed the ability to have multiple consoles play multiplayer games with only one device actually owning the game

Mario Kart World

• Open world installment to the racing series

• 24-player races with an emphasis on race courses being connected to one another

• The gameplay seemed to expand on previous games with rail grinding and wall hopping

• You can get it bundled with the console for $500 USD or pay a ridiculous $80 for it standalone. It remains to be seen if they can justify this hike in price

Kirby Air Riders

• I never played Kirby Air Ride so this one is a bit of an unknown quantity for me. I’m just a little baffled that Nintendo is releasing two racing games so close to one another

Donkey Kong Bananza

• It looks like Donkey Kong is the next character to get the Super Mario Odyssey treatment. His design has been been cartoon-ified a bit and it seems that Diddy Kong has been replaced by a rock

• Looks like the selling point here is deformable and destructible terrain where you can mine for collectibles and resources

• I grew up as a huge fan of Donkey Kong 64, so I am a bit disappointed that it doesn’t seem to be following much in that style of game

Nintendo Switch Welcome Tour

• A “game” that explores and demos the features of the Switch 2

• Inexplicably a paid game and not bundled with every console

Drag x Drive

• This generation’s ARMS that highlights mouse controls with wheelchair basketball gameplay

• I feel like this is going to be real awkward to play unless you play sitting at a table or desk. Pass

Switch 2 Edition Games

A few Switch games were announced to have enhanced versions for the Switch 2. You can either buy these outright or upgrade the Switch versions for a price

• Super Mario Party Jamboree

• Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom

• Kirby and the Forgotten Land

• Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

• Pokemon Legends: Z-A

3rd Party Games

The bulk of the show was a rapid-fire sound-off of third party publishers and announcements of new games and ports of previously released games. The showstopper for me was the announcement that FromSoftware has been working on an entirely new IP exclusively for the Switch 2 called The Duskbloods. I’ll probably end up making a whole separate post about this game because FromSoft director Hidetaka Miyazaki answered a bunch of questions in another interview. Here are a handful of other games that perked up my ears:

• Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition

• Hades 2 (Console exclusive)

• Hollow Knight: Silksong

• Enter the Gungeon 2

• Nintendo GameCube Virtual Console

• A new James Bond game

Bottom Line

I guess the elephant lurking over in the corner of the room, as many know by now, is the global economy and how this is going to affect pricing and availability. $500 for a bundle with Mario Kart World is right on the line for me in terms of how much I would be willing to spend. After Nintendo decided to delay preorders from April 9th to a later date, I started to seriously look inwardly and weigh how much getting one of these at launch really means to me.

The decision I have ultimately come to is that unless a preorder and some extra cash easily falls into my lap, I’m probably going to wait until at least later in the year to seek one of these out. After all, the huge seller here is The Duskbloods and that’s not coming out until sometime next year…