Everything we know about ‘Switch 2,’ Nintendo’s next-gen console

Nintendo, notoriously secretive, has so far said very little on the record about its next game console. As the Nintendo Switch celebrated its seventh birthday in March 2024, questions about how much longer it will last are natural: Seven years is a typical lifespan for a console generation, Switch sales are falling fast, and the technology powering the console is showing its age.

Behind the scenes, however, Nintendo is gearing up for the release of its new machine, briefing its partners, and releasing development kits. Information has started to leak, and a picture of what form the console will take has begun to emerge, as well as when we can expect to hear about it and when we can expect to buy one.

It’s no surprise that Nintendo is treading carefully. The Switch has been an enormous success — it’s the third-best-selling console of all time, behind only the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo’s own DS handheld — which presents both a big opportunity and a big risk. Historically, Nintendo has struggled to follow its most popular formats: the Wii and the DS were followed by the flop of the Wii U and the relative disappointment (in sales terms) of the 3DS. Nintendo’s usual insistence on hardware innovation has proven as likely to alienate its audience as to find a new one. Will Nintendo break with its own tradition and follow the Switch with a more powerful take on the same formula, or will it try something different?

On Nov. 5, Nintendo confirmed that its next console will be backward-compatible with Switch software, and that its Nintendo Switch Online service will carry forward onto the new machine as well. However, Nintendo did not confirm reports that the machine will also be backward compatible with some Switch accessories, including Joy-Con controllers. You can read our full report here.

Announcing the backward compatibility, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said, “Further information about the successor to Nintendo Switch, including its compatibility with Nintendo Switch, will be announced at a later date.” Separately, Furukawa told a press conference that there was no change to its plans to fully announce its new console before the end of March 2025.

Regarding its name, the answer is that we don’t know. It’s worth noting that Nintendo has never before named its consoles in numerical sequence, even when they were direct follow-ups to a previous generation, such as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo 3DS. Super Nintendo Switch (or Super Switch!) has a certain ring to it, if you ask us. But for now, “Switch 2” is a serviceable shorthand, and what we’ll use in this article.

Nintendo has promised to fully reveal its next console during its current fiscal year, which comes to a close at the end of March 2025. So, in theory, Nintendo could make its announcement at any time between now and March 31, 2025 — which has led to almost constant speculation that an announcement was imminent, whether due to industry gossip or Nintendo teasing smaller announcements like its Alarmo alarm clock or Nintendo Music app.

However, most observers now conclude that a 2024 announcement is highly unlikely, as Nintendo will be wary of drawing attention away from Switch and its games during the end-of-year shopping season. An announcement in the early months of 2025 is more plausible, although it would give Nintendo just a short window to promote the machine before its expected launch in March 2025 or the following months.

The answer here appears to be yes. Reporting by VGC, citing multiple sources after dev kits arrived at partner studios, said that the console “would be able to be used in portable mode, similar to the Nintendo Switch.” This was later corroborated by Nikkei. The confirmation of software backward compatibility is another sign that the Switch 2 will have a similar form factor and feature set.

Reporting suggests the console will feature detachable Joy-Con controllers like the Switch, this time with a magnetic attachment system as well as additional buttons, plus a dock similar to the original Switch’s. There’s no word on whether it will have a handheld-only variant like the Switch Lite. But early signs are that Nintendo is keen to follow closely in the footsteps of the 140-million-plus-selling Switch.

It might be a bit bigger, though. A 2024 report from a Japanese analyst suggests the console will have an 8-inch screen, compared to the original Switch’s 6.2 inches and the Switch OLED model’s 7 inches.

Nintendo hasn’t officially indicated when the Switch 2 will be released, but we have a few clues.

Originally, multiple sources reported that the console was planned to debut in the second half of 2024. However, it now appears that Nintendo is targeting a release date in the first half of 2025.

Brazilian games journalist Pedro Henrique Lutti Lippe originally broke the news of the slip to 2025, saying that multiple sources said they were working on games that are set to launch alongside the Switch 2. Both Eurogamer and VGC heard similar claims from their sources. Nikkei then reported Nintendo was targeting March 2025 in an effort to avoid hardware shortages and ensure a strong lineup of games — but noted a slip beyond March was possible.

This does mean the Switch 2 will miss the 2024 holiday season, but it’ll give the company more time to stockpile some first-party titles, according to VGC sources.

Yes! Nintendo has confirmed that Switch software “will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch.” It added that Nintendo Switch Online — the online multiplayer service that also includes a large catalog of retro games — will be available on its next console too. With many users hoping — or outright expecting — to carry forward their game libraries to Nintendo’s next console, as has become the norm with the latest generations of Xbox and PlayStation consoles, the news comes as a big relief.

Nintendo did not specify how backward compatibility will work, saying that further information will be announced at a later date. However, it did state that Nintendo Accounts will carry over to the new console, and that players would have access to Nintendo Switch software they currently own, which strongly suggests that digital purchases will carry over automatically.

Nintendo did not address whether the Switch 2 will be able to play physical Switch cartridge games. However, earlier reports, sourced from peripheral manufacturers, suggested that the Switch 2 will be backward-compatible with physical cartridges as well as some Switch accessories, including the Pro Controller and Joy-Cons.

Nintendo has a decent, if not flawless, record for supporting backward compatibility. The Wii played GameCube games, and the Wii U played Wii games; the Game Boy Advance was backward-compatible with the Game Boy, and the 3DS with the DS. But the Switch, with its new game cartridge format, enforced a clean break with the past, and Nintendo has made a mint from rereleasing Wii U games on the machine, particularly the 64-million-selling Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Of all the console manufacturers, Nintendo’s ties to the retail industry are perhaps the strongest — stronger even than Sony’s — so Nintendo is extremely unlikely to go digital-only for the Switch 2, even if this would seem to make sense for a portable machine.

Indeed, VGC’s report included the detail that the new console will have a cartridge slot for physical releases. This is as close to a dead cert as we can get with the Switch 2 — and it also happens to support the machine having the same or similar form factor as the Switch.

Thanks to Microsoft’s legal battles over its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and reports of demos given by Nintendo to partners at Gamescom, we are beginning to get a sense of how capable the Switch 2’s hardware will be.

Internal emails released as part of the FTC v. Microsoft case revealed that Activision executives met with Nintendo in December 2022 to discuss the console, and came away with the impression that performance would be close to “Gen8 platforms” — in other words, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. (Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick later said that he had not seen tech specs for the machine, however.)

If anything, the “Gen8” comparison sounds as though it might undersell the Switch 2’s capabilities. According to Eurogamer’s and VGC’s reporting on the behind-closed-doors Gamescom demos, Nintendo showed hardware targeting the specs of the console running The Matrix Awakens’ Unreal Engine 5 tech demo with ray tracing enabled and “visuals comparable to Sony’s and Microsoft’s current-gen consoles.”

This doesn’t mean that the Switch 2 will be as powerful as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Instead, Nintendo is likely using clever techniques to reduce the demand on a less powerful graphics processor. VGC reported that the demo ran using Nvidia’s advanced DLSS upscaling technology, which uses AI to upscale the resolution of the image, making it easier for developers to optimize performance and visuals on weaker hardware by lowering the internal resolution settings.

Still, the mention of Unreal Engine 5 — which is establishing itself as the industry standard engine, targeting current console hardware — along with DLSS and ray tracing suggests that Nintendo is keen to get closer to PS5 and Xbox Series X in terms of performance, and perhaps make it more feasible for developers to port their home console releases on the Switch 2. Reporting by Reuters and Digital Foundry suggests the console will use a custom Nvidia chip that will be capable of both ray tracing and DLSS.

Also at Gamescom, a special, improved version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was shown, running at higher resolution and frame rate than it does on Switch.

Customs and shipping data analyzed by fans seems to indicate that the Switch 2 will feature considerable upgrades in both RAM (from 4 GB to 12 GB) and storage (from 32 GB to 256 GB).

The Switch 2 will feature one tech downgrade, however: Reportedly, the console will feature an LCD screen, unlike the OLED screen seen in the current top-of-the-range Switch model, as a cost-cutting measure.

Speaking of the enhanced Breath of the Wild demo, sources were keen to point out that there was no suggestion that an enhanced version of the full game would become a commercial product — although it wouldn’t be altogether surprising if it did.

The foremost candidate for a Switch 2 launch game is probably Metroid Prime 4, due in 2025. Perhaps Nintendo will make it a cross-gen release for the Switch and its successor, as it did with Breath of the Wild for Wii U/Switch, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for GameCube/Wii.

Other than Metroid Prime 4, there are two glaring gaps in Nintendo’s lineup: a new Mario Kart, and a 3D Super Mario game. There hasn’t been an all-new Mario Kart in over nine years, and aside from making add-ons for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Mario Kart development team has been quiet since the release of Arms in 2017. Deluxe has sold so consistently over the Switch’s lifetime that Nintendo hasn’t had an incentive to release a sequel, but a new platform would seem to present the perfect opportunity for Mario Kart 9.

Similarly, there hasn’t been a new 3D Mario game since 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a given that there will be one on Nintendo’s next platform; the only question is when. Odyssey, like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, appeared during the first year of the Switch’s life; perhaps we can expect a repeat of that for the Switch 2.

Polygon will continue to update this story as new details develop.