Nintendo Swap 2 is launching quickly, right here's every thing we all know up to now

Because the world turns, so do the console generations. The Nintendo Swap is over seven years old, so it’s due for a refresh. Nintendo Swap 2 rumors have been swirling for years, however now we have now some indicators of life. The corporate officially revealed the sequel to its most profitable house console ever in a short trailer on January 16.

The Swap 2 seems to be functionally similar to the unique system, albeit with a bigger show, magnetic Pleasure-Cons and a sleeker design. The corporate additionally reaffirmed that the upcoming console shall be backwards suitable with Swap video games.

Whereas the reveal did affirm some rumors and have just a few attention-grabbing particulars for individuals who had been paying shut consideration, Nintendo remains to be largely retaining its playing cards near its chest. We’ll have to attend till a particular Nintendo Direct at 9AM ET on April 2 for all of the juicy data. Annoyingly, that date is a Wednesday and never a Two-sday.

The Nintendo Swap 2 was introduced on January 16

The rumor mill had heavily suggested that Nintendo would pull again the curtain on the Swap 2 on January 16, and that turned out to be the case.

The corporate hasn’t modified the core type issue. It is a moveable console with removable Pleasure-Cons. The Swap 2 will be positioned in a dock for big-screen gaming. There are some important variations from the unique console, nevertheless.

The obvious one is that the next-gen Pleasure-Cons will now not slide into place mechanically. As an alternative, they will connect to the primary unit magnetically. There’s a small connector that is seemingly used to cost the controllers and maybe take away the necessity to hyperlink them by way of Bluetooth. It is unclear at this level if Pleasure-Cons from the unique system shall be suitable with the Swap 2.

One different massive (and really welcome) change is the addition of a second USB-C port on the highest of the machine. That ought to make it a lot simpler to plug in equipment whereas the Swap 2 is docked. It is nice to see that Nintendo has saved the headphone jack as nicely. Let’s simply hope that Bluetooth headphone help is stay from the soar this time and Nintendo does not go away everybody waiting four years for that function.

The kickstand is getting an improve as nicely. As with the Swap OLED, it spans the size of the console. However, in response to the trailer, this one seems to be totally adjustable, so you’ll be able to tweak the viewing angle to at least one that works for you.

Nonetheless, there are nonetheless a fantastic many unknowns concerning the upcoming console. We do not actually know the specs but, or what sort of show it makes use of. We additionally do not know something about battery life, the UI or launch video games. We’ll seemingly study an entire lot on April 2.

When will the Nintendo Swap 2 come out?

2025. That is all we all know for certain at this level.

It is extremely unlikely that Nintendo will launch the console earlier than the devoted Direct on April 2, and never solely as a result of that is in the beginning of Nintendo’s subsequent monetary yr. Nonetheless, accent producer Genki, which has been a serious supply of leaks in latest months, claims the console will be released in April. Different studies have put the discharge window someday in June.

In any case, we must always study the discharge date in the course of the April 2 Direct if we’ve not already by then.

When can I strive the Nintendo Swap 2?

Nintendo is planning a worldwide roadshow to let players go hands-on with the console. These occasions begin in New York and Paris on April 3-6, with others happening all through the next two months. That lends credence to some ideas that Nintendo will launch the Swap 2 in June.

Ticket registration for the Swap 2 Expertise occasions within the US (in New York, Los Angeles and Paris) starts on January 17 at 3PM ET and can stay open till January 26. A Nintendo Account is required to enroll. Nintendo will randomly choose the recipients of the free tickets.

The total record of Nintendo Swap 2 Expertise occasions is as follows:

North America:

New York, April 4-6, 2025
Los Angeles, April 11-13, 2025
Dallas, April 25-27, 2025
Toronto, April 25-27, 2025

Europe:

Paris, April 4-6, 2025
London, April 11-13, 2025
Milan, April 25-27, 2025
Berlin, April 25-27, 2025
Madrid, Could Sep 11, 2025
Amsterdam, Could Sep 11, 2025

Oceania:

Melbourne, Could 10-11, 2025

Asia:

Tokyo (Makuhari), April 26-27, 2025
Seoul, Could 31-June 1, 2025
Hong Kong, To be introduced
Taipei, To be introduced

Will the Nintendo Swap 2 have some weirdness?

All the pieces we have seen and up to now about this console has been pretty, nicely, conventional. It seems to be like the unique Swap, however higher. That is superior, however will there be any of that unpredictable Nintendo magic? Possibly! There are two puzzling additions that people cannot make conceal nor hair of.

Genki, the equipment producer, simply revealed a touchdown web page for his or her Nintendo Swap 2 equipment. This touchdown web page includes a video that features a very detailed take a look at a Swap 2 mockup. pic.twitter.com/Db7RSk4YlQ

— Bob Wulff (@BobWulff) January 8, 2025

Eager eyes can have seen a brand new button on the underside of the correct Pleasure-Con. It it not but clear what this does. May it provoke voice chat throughout gameplay? May it calibrate the controllers? May it create a room-sized hologram of Bowser in your lounge? We’ll have to attend and see.

Now onto the up to date Pleasure-Cons. There seems to be a brand new sensor on the connecting aspect of every controller. It seems to be a whole lot like an optical sensor, which is what a pc mouse makes use of. This has led to hypothesis that gamers will be capable of flip the Pleasure-Con over and use it like a mouse. Of be aware: the trailer reveals the Pleasure-Cons transferring alongside a flat floor, connector aspect down and searching suspiciously like a mouse.

However why would anybody even need this? I can consider three phrases. New Mario Paint.

Genki reveal isnt a mockup, its straight up simply the Swap 2, optical sensor is actually flashing on this shot @Stealth40k #Switch2 pic.twitter.com/COeLsonqMd

— Ash  (@Ashinarii) January 8, 2025

Mouse management isn’t the one “too unusual for any firm however Nintendo” rumor floating round. A patent filed by the corporate suggests you’ll be able to swap the Swap 2’s Pleasure-Cons, snapping them onto both aspect of the console. That will align with the magnetic Pleasure-Con attachment scheme.

However very like the bizarre mouse rumors, it doesn’t essentially align with, nicely, any logical motive for why you’d wish to do this. The patent suggests it might enable for extra consumer alternative in the place the headphone jack is. However because it’s Nintendo, the corporate that introduced us Labo cardboard peripherals and the Recreation Boy Advance e-reader attachment, we have now to surprise if there are… quirkier designs at hand.

Is the Nintendo Swap 2 backwards suitable?

The corporate confirmed in November 2024 that the Nintendo Switch 2 will be backwards compatible. It can additionally function entry to Nintendo On-line, so customers will be capable of play all of these previous retro titles.

Within the preliminary Nintendo Swap 2 press launch, Nintendo reiterated that bodily and digital Swap video games will work on the brand new system. Nonetheless, it famous that “sure Nintendo Swap video games will not be supported on or totally suitable with Nintendo Swap 2.” Extra particulars about which video games these are shall be revealed later.

Will previous video games be enhanced in any method?

The unique Swap has, to place it mildly, struggled to run some of the late-generation software that is come down the pike. May these video games be enhanced to reap the benefits of the elevated horsepower of the Swap 2? We don’t know. We additionally do not know if any of those releases will obtain graphical upgrades, maybe making the most of upscaling tech.

What is going to the cartridges style like?

Chances are you’ll keep in mind that the unique Swap cartridges taste absolutely awful. This was on goal, to discourage of us from placing the video games of their mouth. Will the successor comply with go well with and proceed to dip cartridges in a foul-tasting bitter coating? Solely time will inform.

What about specs?

The rumors concerning specs are in every single place, so it’s powerful to pin down. We all know one factor for certain: It’ll be extra highly effective than the traditional Swap {hardware}, which was already antiquated again in 2017. One analyst allegedly received a maintain of a spec sheet from the Korean United Every day Information that mentioned the Swap 2 would boast an eight-core Cortex-A78AE processor, 8GB of RAM, and 64GB of inside eMMC storage. This tracks for me, as these specs are about as underpowered in 2024 as the unique Swap was in 2017. Nonetheless, some studies do indicate that the console will embody 12GB of RAM.

One other supply means that the eight-core CPU shall be packaged inside an NVIDIA-produced Tegra239 SoC (system on a chip). Given the present Swap runs on an NVIDIA chip, that makes numerous sense. The CPU shall be extra highly effective, however it’s the Swap 2’s new GPU that shall be a serious differentiator. It is all-but-confirmed that the Swap 2 will help DLSS, NVIDIA’s “deep studying supersampling” upscaling tech, which might enable the console to render video games at a low decision internally whereas outputting a high-resolution picture. (Enjoyable reality: We truly wrote about how perfect DLSS was for the Nintendo Switch 2 when the expertise was introduced alongside the RTX 20 sequence again in 2018.)

There are nonetheless questions concerning the Swap 2 and DLSS: Will the system help newer DLSS features like frame generation? Will present video games be robotically tidied up by NVIDIA’s algorithm? Whatever the precise implementation, DLSS upscaling shall be an enormous leap over the rudimentary methods out there to Nintendo Swap builders.

As for the show, there are lots of conflicting rumors. Early studies from stable sources steered the Swap 2 would have an 8-inch show LCD show. The Swap 2’s show definitely seems to be bigger than that of the unique Swap in a side-by-side comparability within the reveal trailer. Some of us have anxious that the Swap follow-up may actually be too big, particularly for youths.

Sure analysts have steered this might be an OLED display, whereas others have mentioned it will be a Mini-LED display. A Mini-LED show is principally an LCD show that has a backlight fabricated from (shock!) mini-LEDs slightly than edge lighting. This permits for native dimming, making the blacks extra black. I’m hedging my bets right here. I feel it’ll be a normal LCD, to chop prices, with an OLED or Mini-LED mannequin coming later down the road. Nonetheless, Mini-LED screens are barely cheaper than OLED shows, in order that’s definitely a chance at launch.

As for decision, latest reporting means that the console will output 1080p in handheld and 4K when docked. That is significantly better than the OG Swap.

Extra tenuous “leaks” have intimated that the Swap 2 might additionally help a sooner microSD card commonplace often called microSD Categorical. This permits for significantly faster switch charges than the frequent UHS-I playing cards supported by the Swap at the moment. It’s technically been around for a number of years, however we’ve solely just lately began to see microSD playing cards that reap the benefits of the spec hit the market.

We truly examined one of them from SanDisk for our microSD card buying guide and located it might attain sequential learn speeds as much as round 900 MB/s. With the present Swap, microSD transfer speeds high out nearer to 100 MB/s.

So, in concept, all of this might carry a large increase in load occasions and normal storage efficiency for the Swap 2 (although it’s nonetheless not more likely to be on par with the SSDs within the PS5 or Xbox Collection X/S). However once more, these rumors are removed from concrete. It’s additionally value noting that microSD Categorical playing cards value considerably greater than what we normally see at the moment — the SanDisk card we examined, as an example, begins at $45 for simply 128GB of storage.

Not too long ago-unearthed FCC filings additionally point out that the console will support WiFi 6 and NFC. The latter signifies that the Swap 2 will proceed Amiibo integration.

How a lot will the Nintendo Swap 2 value?

We do not have an excessive amount of data concerning worth however we do have loads of historical past to work with. The unique Nintendo Swap launched at $300, which is just about the “magic quantity” in relation to Nintendo console releases in recent times. The Wii U additionally got here in at $300.

Nonetheless, there are many rumors circulating that Nintendo might be upping the asking worth for the Swap 2. Quite a few shops have reported it’ll be $400, or probably even more expensive. Nonetheless, the identical analysts who say the console shall be $400 had been additionally pretty sure it will be out by the top of 2024 and, nicely, that did not occur.

Dipping again into historical past, there may be some priority for a worth uptick. The GameCube was $200 and the Wii was $250. The Wii U and Swap elevated to $300 and, nicely, numbers prefer to go up. A $400 price ticket would make it almost as costly as a PS5 and Xbox Collection X. That will additionally put it on the identical worth because the 256GB LCD Steam Deck.

Once more, we must always get affirmation of the worth in the course of the April 2 Nintendo Direct.

Will we find out about any launch video games?

Not a lot. The reveal trailer provided a peek at a brand new Mario Kart sport. Nintendo launched Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U over a decade in the past and it has been milking that money cow ever since, having offered greater than 64 million copies of the sport throughout that console and the Swap. It is undoubtedly time for a brand new entry!

It is definitely been a long time since we’ve gotten a correct 3D Mario journey as nicely, so a brand new one might be a launch title. That will be one heck of a system vendor. Aside from that, your guess is nearly as good as mine. Previous as prologue, we are able to anticipate one thing from Ubisoft and an off-the-wall title like 1-2-Swap.

If there’s a gimmick or hook concerned with the console, we’ll additionally get a sport that takes benefit of that. A twin launch of Metroid Prime 4, similar to Breath of the Wild and Twilight Princess earlier than that, can be a chance.

It is all however nailed on that we’ll study far more concerning the Swap 2 launch lineup in the course of the April 2 Nintendo Direct, which begins at 9AM ET. You will undoubtedly wish to set your Alarmo for that one.

That is every thing we all know concerning the Nintendo Swap 2 at the moment. We’ll replace this text with rumors we belief and with data we collect immediately from sources. Any adjustments made to the article after its preliminary publishing shall be listed beneath.

Replace, February 24, 2025, 12:30 PM ET: This story has been up to date to incorporate hypothesis about storage and details about the brand new microSD Categorical commonplace.

Replace, January 24, 2025, 12:36 PM ET: This story has been up to date to incorporate hypothesis about worth, potential sport enhancements and the style of cartridges.

Replace, February 5, 2025, 9:30AM ET: This story has been up to date to notice the time when the April 2 Nintendo Direct begins.

Replace, March 6, 2025, 2:30PM ET: This story has been up to date to notice latest FCC filings to point the presence of WiFi 6 and NFC help.

Jeff Dunn contributed to this report.

This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-switch-2-is-launching-soon-heres-everything-we-know-so-far-153308958.html?src=rss

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