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Nintendo Switch 2 has competition after Xbox hints at handheld future

The console will still be revealed this fiscal year, but Microsoft may be close behind

Alex Lee

Tech writer

Monday 18 November 2024 14:08 GMT

The Nintendo Switch 2 could be as powerful as a Steam Deck (The Independent )

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The Nintendo Switch 2 is the worst-kept secret in console history. After being officially confirmed by Nintendo’s president Shuntaro Furukawa in May, leaks about the follow-up to the Nintendo Switch continue to drop, but we still have no official news.

On 5 November, Furukawa reiterated Nintendo’s plans to announce the Nintendo Switch 2 by the end of the fiscal year (March 2025) during the company’s latest earnings call. While he didn’t elaborate on the Switch’s successor, he did reveal that it would be backwards compatible.

Although insiders initially expected Nintendo to announce the console in 2024, analysts now predict it won’t be revealed until next year at the earliest. This comes as Microsoft’s gaming boss Phil Spencer admitted to Bloomberg that the company is looking at “doing something” in the handheld category, and is actively working on an Xbox handheld prototype, though it is still a few years out.

Fans are getting frankly impatient for any news on the Nintendo Switch 2, so we’ve taken a dive through the green warp pipe, and have rounded up all the Nintendo Switch 2 rumours currently swirling in the ether, including details about the release date, price, features, specs and more.

Nintendo Switch 2 release date: When could the console launch?

For ages, many leakers thought Nintendo would release a new, souped-up Nintendo Switch console in 2021, which would be called the Nintendo Switch Pro. While Nintendo did announce a new console that year, it wasn’t the Switch Pro. On 6 July 2021, Nintendo unveiled the Nintendo Switch OLED console, a modest, revised upgrade over the OG model, with a slightly larger OLED display. This wasn’t the Switch Pro we’d hoped for.

Fast forward to 2023, and several reports began to drop suggesting that Nintendo was preparing to launch the actual follow-up to the Nintendo Switch 2 in late 2024. On 31 July 2023, Video Games Chronicle (VGC) issued a report claiming the Nintendo Switch 2 would be released in the second half of 2024 and that sources had informed the publication that development kits of the console were “now with key partner studios”, in an effort to “ensure it has ample stock available on day one and to avoid the kind of shortages seen with PlayStation 5 and Xbox series X/S”.

According to Eurogamer, Nintendo demoed the Switch 2 at Gamescon in August 2023. In his report, Eurogamer editor Tom Phillips said, while reports have pinned a Switch 2 release to the latter half of 2024, “I understand Nintendo is keen to launch the system sooner if possible”.

During Nintendo’s earnings call in May 2023, Furukawa admitted that sales of the Switch were flagging, adding to a mountain of evidence hinting that the follow-up console would be released in 2024. But Nintendo’s plans appeared to change in early February 2024.

When the company announced its 2023 figures, Furukawa reportedly said the current Nintendo Switch would remain the company’s “main business” coming into 2024, and declined to comment on new hardware plans.

Later that month, a wave of new reports from Eurogamer, Bloomberg and VGC stated Nintendo had decided to push back the release date of the Switch 2 to early 2025. According to VGC, third-party game developers were briefed on an “internal delay” in the launch of Nintendo’s next-gen console, pushing it back to the first quarter of 2025. One of VGC’s sources suggested the console had been delayed “so Nintendo could prepare stronger first-party software for the console”

Then in May 2024, Nintendo’s president finally confirmed that a Nintendo Switch 2 console was coming and that it would be announced within the fiscal year, meaning before March 2025.

But while some suggested it could be announced by the end of the year, and then released in 2025, some aren’t even sure it’ll arrive in the first half of 2025 anymore. Despite Furukawa announcing in May that the Nintendo Switch’s successor would be announced “this fiscal year” (meaning before 31 March), several reports suggest the Nintendo Switch 2 may have been delayed yet again.

In early August 2024, games industry journalist Christopher Dring revealed on a Games Industry Biz podcast that he had spoken to a number of developers who weren’t expecting the Switch 2 to arrive until after the fiscal year. “No developer I’ve spoken to expects it to launch in this financial year, in fact, they’ve been told not to expect it in this financial year,” he said. “A bunch of people I spoke to hope it’s out in April/May time – still ‘early next year’, not late.”

Days later, Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda revealed in a new report that the Switch 2 could launch in the first half of 2025, so it could launch in June at the latest, giving it a second-quarter release, rather than a first-quarter launch as initially predicted.

An August report from Chinese semiconductor manufacturer Weltrend claimed the consoles would begin mass production at the end of the third quarter of 2024 (probably in September). A second-quarter launch of the Switch 2 in 2025 lines up with it entering mass production around September 2024.

But according to a leaker on the Famiboards forum, where leaks about the Switch 2’s specs first surfaced, the console didn’t go into mass production in September as first reported, and it still isn’t in full production as of October 2024. if true, that could hint at further delays in the release schedule. The user did claim that component shipments had ramped up, however, so if it’s not already in mass production, it will be soon.

The question is: will we see the Switch 2 before the end of the year? According to industry analyst Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy Kantan Games, probably not. “Nintendo is unpredictable, but I do believe a reveal before the end of the year is very unlikely,” Toto told Eurogamer in early November. “Sales of the current model are cratering, more than Nintendo had already anticipated. They would implode even further if a Switch 2 announcement came before the holidays, so why would they do that? Instead, Nintendo is a lot more likely to wait until early January to show the new device. For 2024, the ship has sailed.”

So where do we stand? We know for a fact that the Nintendo Switch 2 will be announced by the end of March 2025 at the very latest, but we might not see the Switch 2 hit shelves until April at the very earliest, and it might even be pushed back to the second half of the year if we’re very unlucky. Right now, the leading theory is that it will be announced in January 2025, and it will most definitely be announced this fiscal year (unless it’s pushed back again).

Nintendo Switch 2 rumours: Design

In September 2024, alleged prototype photos of the Nintendo Switch 2 surfaced online. In a YouTube video, tech gaming news site Digital Foundry said, based on tracking shipments out of Taiwan, “it can be determined that the leak is genuine – or, at least, as accurate as an old prototype dating from October 2023 can be”. A source also told VGC the images “match what the company has told partners to expect from its design”.

In the prototype photos, the Nintendo Switch 2 is shown to have a larger 8in display, as well as slimmer bezels and redesigned magnetic Joy-Con controllers with new SR and SL buttons and a switch-up of the position of the LED light.

There are also two USB-C ports on the top and bottom, with some people speculating you’ll be able to use these ports to link two Switch consoles together or to hook up new accessories. There’s also a game cartridge slot at the top of the console, hinting you’ll be able to play existing Nintendo Switch games on the machine.

Nintendo Switch 2 rumours: Specs and features

Rumours about the specs and features have been dropping in dribs and drabs for almost four years now, so, it feels like we already know what the console will look like on the inside. Officially speaking, however, Nintendo has only confirmed one thing about the Nintendo Switch 2 – it’ll be backwards compatible, so you’ll be able to play your current Switch games on the new system.

But what about the rumours? Here’s every spec rumour we’ve seen, dating back to 2021.

In late 2021, a month before the launch of the Switch OLED, Bloomberg released a report stating a number of developers were in possession of a 4K Switch kit. Nintendo swiftly denied these rumours, stating it had no plans for any new console besides the Switch OLED. Some questioned whether Nintendo wanted to quell rumours so it wouldn’t impact sales of the Switch OLED, but that’s just conjecture.

The Nintendo Switch currently uses Nvidia’s (now very old) Tegra X1 chip, which features a 256-core Maxwell GPU. The rumours so far suggest Nintendo will be sticking with Nvidia for the Nintendo Switch 2, despite stiff competition from AMD, which provided the chip for Valve’s powerful Steam Deck.

There was a big Nvidia data leak in March 2022, and data miners found files referencing “NVN2”. NVN is the Nintendo Switch’s graphics API. At the time, “NVN2” hinted at a second-generation version for the rumoured Switch Pro.

The files were from 2019, providing credence to the theory that the Switch Pro was in active development but was axed, as suggested by Digital Foundry.

In September 2022, an Nvidia employee expanded on the idea that the Nintendo Switch 2 would make use of a new Nvidia Tegra chip, specifically the Tegra T239 – a previously unconfirmed circuit that older rumours suggested the Switch 2 would use.

Nvidia’s sources once again backed up these claims in late February 2024. Games leaker Moore’s Law is Dead stated in a YouTube video that the leak from Digital Foundry about the T239 processor is an “almost entirely correct summary” of the Nintendo Switch 2. The insider claims that the T239 has an Ampere GPU architecture and uses Samsung's 8nm process node with 8GB, 12GB or 16GB of 128-bit LPDDR5 memory. If correct, Moore’s Law is Dead suggests the Switch 2 could be as powerful as the Xbox series S, and more powerful than the Steam Deck.

In July 2023, VGC released a report stating the Switch 2 development kits were now in the hands of Nintendo’s biggest studios. The publication claimed that, according to multiple people with knowledge of the next-generation console’s plans, it “would be able to be used in portable mode, similar to the Nintendo Switch”.

While, at the time, two of VGC’s sources also claimed the Nintendo Switch 2 would have an LCD display instead of an OLED panel, Nintendo and Samsung were reportedly in talks over the supply of OLED displays. The rumour came courtesy of South Korean news site ChosenBiz.

While there has been no word on 4K support, a 2021 patent filed by Nintendo suggested it was working on 4K upscaling. VGC added to this rumour in September when its sources were shown the Nintendo Switch 2 at Gamescon. According to the publication: “One Switch 2 demo is understood to have been an improved version of the Switch launch title Zelda: Breath of the Wild, running at a higher framerate and resolution than the original game.”

VGC’s source saw The Matrix Awakens running on the machine, which was used as an Unreal Engine test demo for the PS5 and Xbox series X. “The demo is said to have been running using Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling technology, with advanced ray tracing enabled and visuals comparable to Sony’s and Microsoft’s current-gen consoles,” the report reads.

In September 2024, photos of prototype components leaked on a Chinese website. According to Digital Foundry, the leak “was genuine”. Alongside the alleged photos, another user leaked a reported full spec list of the console. The leak states it will have 256GB of storage, 12GB of RAM and HDMI 2.1 ports.

Based on the leaked specs, the Switch 2 won’t be as fast as the PS5 or Xbox series X, but it has more RAM than the Xbox series S, making it more similar to the Steam Deck. Here’s a list of the rumoured tech specs of the Nintendo Switch 2:

SoCl (CPU + GPU) model: GMLX30-R-A1
Memory model: MT62F768M64D4EK-026 (6GX2 dual channel, LPDDR5X, 7500 MT/s)
Flash memory model: THGJFGT1E45BAILHW0 (256GB, UFS 3.1, manufactured by Kaixia, 2100 MB/s)
Audio chip model: Ruiwu ALC5658-CG
NFC reader model: NXP IPN7160B1HN
Built-in microphone model: CMB-MIC-X7
Dual cooling fans model BSM0405HPJH9 and BSM0505HPJQC (copper gaming heat sink)
Video signal conversion: (DisplayPort to HDMI) must be chip model; Ruixian RTD2175N must be chip (support HDMI 2.1)
Network chip model: Ruiming RTL8153B-VB-CG and Gigabit Ethernet chip (the base has a network cable interface)
Microcontroller chip model: STMicroelectronics JSTM32G0OB0OCET6
Video game console protective case model: HGU1100 (size: 206mm x 115mm x 14mm, made of plastic)
Speakers: MUSE BOX-L and MUSE BOX-R (two-channel stereo)

Nintendo Switch 2 price: How much could it cost?

The Nintendo Switch 2 could be significantly more expensive than the original Nintendo Switch’s launch price, according to numerous leakers. Reports about the price range from between $399 (£307) to $499 (£385).

In February 2024, YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead speculated on the price of the Nintendo Switch 2, using the rumoured tech specs as a baseline. According to the insider, a graphics card with similar specs in terms of performance is the RTX 2050. Lenovo laptops featuring the RTX 2050 and 12GB of RAM have a starting price of $499.99 (£385). With that in mind, the insider speculates that the Switch 2 could cost between $349 and $499.

In a new August 2024 report, Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda estimated that the Switch 2 could launch under the $499 (£385) mark. That lines up with previous rumours from other analysts and puts it above the price of the Nintendo Switch OLED by about £100.

The best Nintendo Switch deals

Nintendo Switch OLED: Was £309.99, now £269.95, Amazon.co.uk

The Nintendo Switch OLED is starting to see some hefty discounts. Amazon has discounted the console by £40. “Its colourful display, better build quality and bigger storage make buying the Nintendo Switch OLED a no-brainer,” we said in our review of the console. “New to Nintendo? Buy the Switch OLED console and never look back.”

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