Nintendo has officially revealed the Nintendo Switch 2. After months of waiting, the company has finally pulled back the curtain on its new console. In a brief video shared this morning, the company unveiled its new system. At this time, details about games are minimal but a brand-new Mario Kart was shown briefly. Today’s trailer, which lasts just over two minutes, largely focused on the hardware itself. Nintendo has teased that more details will be coming during a Nintendo Direct on April 2nd, so we should start to get a lot more info in the coming weeks!
Videos by ComicBook.com
Among other things, today’s trailer officially confirmed the console’s name. In the past, Nintendo has struggled to get users to migrate from one system to the next, and that has sometimes been attributed to the company’s naming conventions. The Wii U is perhaps the best example of this, with Nintendo’s follow-up to the highly-successful Wii struggling to find an audience. Today’s trailer confirmed that Nintendo is using the Switch 2 name, which should make it clear to everyone that this is a brand-new era for the company. The trailer can be found below.
A launch window for the new Nintendo system is currently unknown besides a vague “2025.” Switch launched in March 2017, which is pretty unusual for a video game system. However, the move proved to be a smart one, as it gave Nintendo plenty of time to stock the shelves with hardware and software ahead of the console’s first holiday on the market. Given how well that worked back in the past, fans have speculated that Nintendo will attempt something similar with Switch 2. We can probably expect it in May or June given the April Nintendo Direct, but there’s no way of knowing just yet.
At this point, Nintendo Switch has been on the market for nearly eight years. That’s a very long lifespan for a video game platform, and fans have spent years wondering when Nintendo might release a follow-up system. It’s a testament to Nintendo’s strong support for Switch that the console continues to sell well in spite of its age. Previous systems like N64 and GameCube saw support dwindle in their later years, as Nintendo’s internal studios shifted their resources to working on the next platform. Switch has been an outlier in that regard, with first-party games continuing to see release at a near-monthly pace. Nintendo seems to have found a way to avoid its past issues, leaning on remasters and smaller games handled by outside developers like Grezzo, Arika, Good-Feel, and Tantalus Media. The move seems to have freed up Nintendo’s internal studios to work on games for the Switch successor, so it will be interesting to see what they’ve been up to.
RELATED: New Nintendo Switch 2 Game Revealed
Despite strong sales for Nintendo Switch, fans have been eager for a more powerful system to take its place, and it will be exciting to see the impact this has on Nintendo’s franchises. While games like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have pushed the system’s technical abilities to its limits, there’s something exciting about the prospect of seeing Nintendo games that are more technically demanding. It’s been a long journey to the Nintendo Switch successor, but the future looks pretty bright!
Do you plan on checking out Nintendo’s new console? What do you think of today’s reveal? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
