Finally—after years of rumors and months of leaks, Nintendo has confirmed the biggest open secret in gaming: The Switch 2 is releasing this year.
The announcement doesn’t come as a surprise—especially in the wake of CES 2025, where several peripheral makers were bold enough to display replicas of the unrevealed hardware to showcase their Switch 2 accessories—but you might be shocked at just how closely the upcoming Switch 2 sticks to the form and function of its predecessor.
At a glance, the reveal video shows a … slightly bigger Switch. It's still a hybrid console, alternating between a portable handheld gaming device and a home entertainment system that outputs to your big-screen TV via a docking station. It still has a pair of detachable Joy-Con controllers that seem to still function as two independent controllers for the ever-present, on-the-go multiplayer. It runs Mario Kart! For all intents and purposes, this is Switch 2: Switch Harder.
In an industry where generational leaps are usually accompanied by the breathless espousing of new features and ever more powerful hardware, the Switch 2 reveal feels oddly restrained. Even the Sony PlayStation 5 Pro, a mid-generation upgrade, had more hype surrounding its announcement. Nintendo has rarely played that game though—arguably the last time it did was way back in the SNES era, where it boasted of the 16-bit console’s “Mode 7” graphics prowess over the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive—here in 2025, it doesn't need to. The reason is simple: The existing Switch is already a market leader, so why change what works?
It's hard to overstate the impact the Switch has had on the gaming industry since its launch in 2017. Not only has it become one of the best-selling consoles of all time—146.2 million units sold globally as of September 2024, putting it behind only the PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo DS handheld, though it may overtake even those by the end of its life cycle—but it's almost single-handedly driven the renewed surge in gaming handhelds.
The launch of Valve's Steam Deck in 2022 was the biggest reaction to the success of the Switch, and its became an immediate hit, allowing players to take their bulging (and often untouched) Steam libraries with them. Like the Switch, the Steam Deck supported docked output to a TV, either through Valve's peripheral or one made by various third-party manufacturers. From Steam Deck, we saw the arrival of rival handheld gaming PCs, from Lenovo's Legion Go to Asus’ ROG Ally X or MSI's Claw, with more on the way.
Even Microsoft is planning some sort of handheld Xbox, which would see it entering a corner of the gaming industry it has never dabbled in, even though the company's gaming boss, Phil Spencer, says such a gadget is likely years away. Sony, meanwhile, already twice-burned with gaming handhelds in the form of the PSP and PS Vita, was so surprised by the popularity of its PS Portal device—launched as a “remote viewer” accessory for PS5—that it keeps updating it to add more dedicated gaming features (even if those ambitions aren't quite panning out just yet).
While almost all of these devices have considerably more power than the now-aged Nintendo Switch, they all emerged in response to Nintendo tapping into a gamer's desire for home console-quality gaming on the go. None of them have replicated the simplicity of being able to seamlessly transition between home and portable play.
Besides, the futility of endlessly chasing higher specs and bigger numbers is something industry figures have been quietly acknowledging since the launch of the original Switch. As far back as 2020, former Xbox marketing lead Albert Penello said hardware refreshes were “less necessary,” while Spencer told Bloomberg, “We're not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles."
Power and specs be damned—everyone else is playing catch-up to the experience the Switch delivers, so why should Nintendo change what works for the Switch 2?
Switching It Up
That's not to say the Switch 2 won't offer any improvements over the Switch 1. Although Nintendo hasn't confirmed any specifications yet—don't expect those details until the dedicated Nintendo Direct broadcast on April 2—a few things are immediately apparent from the reveal.
Most prominent is the aesthetic change—the Switch 2 is nearly all black, with only color highlights for the Joy-Con controllers. Those highlights keep the iconic red/blue split of the original Switch, but overall the new hardware has a less toylike, more grown-up appearance.
Next are the overhauled Joy-Con controllers themselves. In addition to being slightly bigger to match the larger screen—a design choice sure to be welcomed by anyone whose hands have cramped up trying to use an existing Joy-Con as a single controller—they now snap into a recessed bracket in the main console rather than sliding into place as with the current Switch. This appears to lend credence to long-running rumors that the new controller grips would utilize a magnetic connection to hold them in place.
Other redesigned Joy-Con elements include more prominent shoulder triggers for use when connected to the console and the addition of an inward-facing trigger that looks tricky to reach in console mode but may function independently when detached. Meanwhile, the (presumably) magnetic connection affords a raised row with integrated miniature shoulder buttons. There also seems to be some new sensor integrated here, which may prove to offer rumored mouselike features for the Joy-Cons. A couple of shots of both Joy-Cons sliding around a flat surface also point in this direction—and if so, could a Switch keyboard be far behind?
We also see an extra button on the face of the right-hand Joy-Con, beneath the Home button. While this is unlabeled in the teaser, it could see some form of “C-button” functionality, which Nintendo used in various forms on the N64 and GameCube in the past. It's also worth noting one particularly pointed shot focused on the left Joy-Con thumbstick rotating—could this be intended to highlight improved thumbsticks for the new generation, possibly incorporating Hall effect technology? Given the drift issues that plagued the original Switch, it'd be a smart move on Nintendo's part.
The biggest changes to the main console itself, beyond the increased physical size, are the addition of an extra USB-C port on the top and a new U-shaped kickstand. While the former is an excellent addition, opening up the potential to support more accessories, the latter looks a little flimsy—better than the nub that propped up the original Switch but less sturdy than the Switch OLED’s solid back-panel kickstand.
Speaking of the OLED Switch, and judging purely from the chunky bezel shown in the Switch 2 reveal, the new console may be reverting to an LCD panel. Again, this has been rumored for a while, but it will be hard not to see it as a bit of a step backward.
The best takeaway from the reveal, though, is Nintendo immediately confirming backward compatibility with existing Switch games, both physically and digitally (albeit with a few as-yet -unspecified exclusions). That's fantastic news for players who've spent the better part of a decade building up their libraries, and another example of Nintendo's quiet confidence and sense of continuity. When you've racked up 1.3 billion software sales for your incredibly successful platform, why risk alienating those customers?
And that's seemingly Nintendo's strategy for Switch 2, in a nutshell: If it ain't broke, why fix it? Players love the Switch as it is, the company's main competitors are all emulating it to greater or lesser extents, and all signs point to “more but better” being a compelling selling point. It’s playing it safe—but it doesn't need to do anything else.
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