Can We Just Call It 'Super Switch'?
Nathan Ingraham
I'm on the road this week, but I finally was able to catch up on a lot of the coverage around Nintendo's official Switch 2 showcase. My quick take is largely inline with my take from January following the teaser video for the device (and since a lot of the specs and details leaked out ahead of time proved to be mostly accurate): this is just about the safest thing Nintendo could have done as a follow-up to the Switch. That's not going to blow anyone's socks off, but it should sell a lot of units.
Perhaps the only real surprise was the price at $450, which was higher than most people were expecting. Maybe this was Nintendo getting ahead of any tariffs – if so, that now looks extremely prescient (update below) – but more likely, it was just the company realizing that they had more pricing power with which to operate here given how expensive the top-of-the-line consoles from Sony and Microsoft now cost. Let alone top-of-the-line smartphones, which obviously do more than just play games, but are ever increasingly used for that as well. And they're smartly doing a $500 bundle with Mario Kart World, which seems like a no-brainer for anyone buying on day one as it gives you a nice discount to that game.
Speaking of day one, another smart/interesting thing Nintendo is doing here is around pre-orders, by requiring that you have 50 hours of gameplay on the original Switch as of April 2nd, 2025. That's not a ton, but it's just enough that in should stop the bots while at the same time rewarding loyal Nintendo enthusiasts. Of course, that was the plan before Trump's Tariffs became official (well, officially announced, at least) and thus threw the entire world economy into disarray.
That includes Nintendo which is now postponing those pre-orders, which were supposed to start on April 9 – at least in the US. The launch itself is still said to be a go right now for June 5, but they're sort of alluding to the fact that the price may change further. Again, at least in the US.
The new "mouse mode" for the Joy-Con controllers looks clever, but we'll see if any games beyond Nintendo's early demo games actually make much use of it. What if some PC-style games do? The new social Chat functionality baked-in feels like table-stakes stuff these days. The camera-accessory for this purpose could be fun (or also more of a gimmick). The game-swapping thing also is a clever way to share, if slightly convoluted. People seem mildly annoyed that the screen is only a 1080p LCD, but the dock can do up to 4K and it doesn't seem like a huge deal given that Nintendo is never at the absolute cutting edge in such specs.
Speaking of, it's interesting (but hardly surprising) that Nintendo didn't specify which chip would powering the Switch 2 beyond noting that NVIDIA once again made it. This is a very different world for NVIDIA than when they made the first Switch chip – to say the least – and you'd think Nintendo might want to tout such a partnership even more. No, you're not going to be training AI models on this machine, but still, it would highlight how Nintendo was ahead of a curve here. The only real details we have about that chip are coming out of NVIDIA, which is noting that graphics should be up to 10x faster than the first Switch!
That should be especially awesome for the original Switch games which Nintendo is porting over with "special" editions, including, of course, both of their Zelda titles. And it's an especially smart strategy since it will make it seem as if the Switch 2 has a larger array of launch titles than it will really have (though yes, it will be able to play most original Switch games in a non-enhanced mode too). The GameCube games finally coming to Switch Online will certainly also help!
Finally, while I think the 'Switch 2' name is fine, I would just once again point out the opportunity left on the table to call this the 'Super Switch'. Clearly, the team thought about it as well (as relayed in their own developer Q&A – h/t Connor Graham):
Kawamoto: There were a lot of ideas for the name, and we really struggled to find the right one.
We even considered ideas like “Super Nintendo Switch.” However, Super NES (25), which came out after the NES (26), couldn’t play NES games. Since Switch 2 can play Switch games, it didn't feel right to use the same naming convention as Super NES. Switch 2 is a new system with improved performance, but we'd like players who get their hands on it not to focus on the specs, but rather to think of it as the latest system developed by Nintendo.
So, in the hope that it becomes the new standard for Nintendo Switch, we named it Nintendo Switch 2.
While it's true that the Super Nintendo couldn't play Nintendo games, that was undoubtedly just due to the technological limitations at the time. Also, at least in the US, no one called it the 'Super NES' they called it the 'Super Nintendo' (or sometimes 'SNES' which may as well have stood for nothing) . That matters here because in this vein, no would likely call it the 'Super Nintendo Switch', they'd likely call it the 'Super Switch' or maybe 'Nintendo Super Switch'. I think Nintendo very much overthought this one. It would have been such a good, fun callback. Especially since this really does feel like a 'Super Switch'.
One more thing: It really is such a fiasco that Nintendo announced this system right before the Trump Tariffs. It continues to feel like Nintendo was about a year off from when they should have released this system.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
Update April 7, 2025: Sure enough, here's Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser confirming that the tariffs (even just the fear of them) did not play into the pricing for the Switch 2. As such, they're still evaluating what to do about them...
Though I'm always a bit skeptical when Doug Bowser says anything in relation to Nintendo. I can't quite put my finger on why...