Nintendo Switch 2 announcement: all the news on the next console

Nintendo shared the first details about the Nintendo Switch 2 in a video published Thursday. Nintendo doesn’t give a specific release date for the console besides “2025.”

The console looks a lot like the original, but it’s bigger. In the video, the Joy-Con controllers are black with colored accents, and they attach to the side of the console instead of sliding on and off. The Joy-Cons appear to snap on quite easily — leaks have suggested they could be attached via magnets.

Drag x Drive is the next Switch 2 exclusive to get a release date. Nintendo, via its Nintendo Today news app, announced that the 3 v 3 wheelchair basketball game would be out August 14th.

Since the launch of the Switch 2 earlier this month, most of the new console’s catalogue has been third party releases like Deltarune and Cyberpunk 2077 . There have also only been two exclusives so far: Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. Donkey Kong Bananza, perhaps the most anticipated game of the Switch 2’s short lifespan so far, launches next month on July 17th. And with Drag x Drive coming in August, the slate of Switch 2 first party exclusives will expand to four.

Editor’s note: Nintendo Switch 2 preorders go live at 12AM ET tonight. If you’re hoping to secure a console at launch, we’ve published an updated guide with a few tips to increase your chances.

After years of rumors, Nintendo has finally announced a release date for the Switch 2. The long-awaited successor to the Switch will be available on June 5th for $449.99, bringing a handful of games and accessories along with it.

If you’ve dreaded entering the eShop for most of the original Switch’s life because of how slow it is, well, Nintendo knows and won’t make that mistake again. The Switch 2 will have a faster-performing eShop channel “even when displaying a large number of games,” Takuhiro Dohta, Nintendo’s senior director for entertainment planning and development, said in an Ask the Developer interview.

Dohta said the Switch 2’s eShop speed improvements are “thanks to the system’s performance capabilities,” which, of course, is a significant jump from the original system’s aging software that increasingly struggled in both menu and games over the years. “We believe the act of finding the game you want to play is itself part of the game system experience,” Dohta said.

Nintendo has revealed something new about Switch 2 games on a day it wasn’t planning to talk about the new system. After today’s Nintendo Direct stream, the company revealed the existence of “Switch 2 Edition” games on its webpage about the new Virtual Game Card lending system, VGC reports.

The Virtual Game Card system launching next month lets you share your digital games between family members, giving the games similar benefits to physical cartridges that you could already swap between systems. However, Nintendo’s fine print gives away something else (emphasis ours):

While we expected to find out much more about Nintendo’s upcoming game system next week during the Switch 2 Direct event on April 2nd, a tiny new detail has been confirmed in this promo image for the new Nintendo Today news app. One of the screenshots listed in App Store and Google Play shows a Switch 2, and as VGC pointed out, features a “C” label on the right-side Joy-Con’s new button for the first time.

The Switch 2 images and teaser clips revealed by Nintendo until now have carefully hidden the labeling on that button, even though it’s been referred to in earlier leaks. We still don’t know exactly what it does, although there’s been speculation that C could refer to chat or community features, or that it could tie in to the rumored mouse-like functionality. Mostly, it’s just surprising that Nintendo appears to have revealed anything about its next console outside of the planned launch — we’ll keep an eye on Nintendo Today to see if it has any other secrets waiting.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is already official, but there’s a lot we still don’t know — like, will Nintendo’s new handheld support the NFC-equipped Amiibo figurines that can wirelessly unlock content in games?

Today, it seems likely they will, because filings at the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) reveal the console will support NFC. They even specify that the RFID feature will be located in the right Joy-Con, just like it was in the original Switch.

Newly-published Nintendo patents show that the company has been exploring a version of its Joy-Con controllers that can work like a computer mouse, a feature Nintendo has hinted will be coming to the Switch 2. In its Switch 2 teaser video last month, Nintendo showed two Joy-Con controllers sliding along the ground, much like you’d move a mouse.

But mouse-like functionality may not just be limited to Joy-Cons: the patents also show that Nintendo has explored adding mouse-like functionality to a split controller with a larger, more traditionally-sized grip.

Nintendo is gearing up for the Switch 2’s launch sometime in 2025, and president Shuntaro Furukawa says that the company is “taking risks and proceeding with production so that we can meet as much demand as possible,” according to a machine translation of an earnings Q&A.

The company had some trouble keeping the original Switch in stock during its very successful 2017 launch. Nintendo isn’t going to reveal its specific Switch 2 production plans until it releases the business plan for its next fiscal year (which begins in April), Furukawa says, but the company wants to gauge demand following the Switch 2-focused Nintendo Direct on April 2nd.

As we settle in for the long, excruciating wait for more tangible news on the Switch 2, Nintendo has thrown us a little extra nugget of information. While we knew the company was planning to share more about the Switch 2 on April 2nd, now we have a time: 9 AM ET / 6 AM PT / 10 PM JST. If you were taking bets on this time, you would have won handily as this is generally the usual time Nintendo holds its big events. The announcement on Nintendo’s website didn’t contain any extra detail about the duration of the event or the exact breakdown of topics that’ll be covered, other than to say it “will share a closer look” at the new device.

Last month, the company finally confirmed the existence of its new console dubbed, helpfully, the Switch 2. The reveal itself was sparse on detail, only confirming that the console would be larger than its predecessor and that its Joy-Con controllers appear to attach via some kind of magnetic action. Because of the reveal’s relative lack of concrete information, we’re left with so many questions about the new console. Nevertheless, there was still lots of speculation about what the Switch 2 could possibly do. Theories were put forth that the new Joy-Cons contained some kind of mouse functionality and that the extra button on the right Joy-Con was related to some kind of party chat feature. Hopefully, Nintendo will let us know those if theories were correct during the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct on Wednesday, April 2nd bright and early at 9 AM.

A video on Nintendo’s Switch 2 website shows how the trigger (or is it a button?) on the back of the Joy-Con controllers disconnects them from the console, as spotted by Polygon.

In the video, the trigger is pressed down a tad before a final push releases it from the console. As the Joy-Con moves away, you can also see a small cylinder receding back into the top part of the inside of the controller; to me, that indicates that when you push the trigger, you’re actually pushing out that cylinder to help bump the Joy-Con out.

Nintendo has finally revealed its new console, debuting the Switch 2 with a short video that went heavy on visuals but light on information. The video was paired with a brief follow-up press release from Nintendo that also didn’t go into much detail, with the company ostensibly saving all the juicy stuff for the Switch 2 Direct set to take place on April 2nd. While we wait for official word, here are the burning questions we still have about the Nintendo Switch 2.

Perhaps the most glaring omission in the Switch 2 reveal was the fact that Nintendo didn’t say anything about how powerful the new console is. We can see that the console is bigger, but what’s the screen size? Is it OLED or LCD? Is the screen resolution still 720p? Is 4K resolution supported?

The first Nintendo Switch basically had the road to itself, and Nintendo instantly proved just how awesome a hybrid console and handheld could be, leading to massive success. We now know that the Switch 2 is set to launch in 2025, but it will be released into a world that’s packed with very capable handheld gaming PCs that could present an interesting challenge to Nintendo, especially following news from CES 2025.

Valve’s Steam Deck kicked off the handheld gaming PC push in large part because its Linux-based SteamOS makes playing your games just about as easy as it is on consoles. That’s why one of the biggest CES announcements is that Valve is going to let people install SteamOS on other handhelds as soon as April, potentially making the entire handheld PC gaming market a lot more appealing.

Nintendo has finally revealed the Switch 2 — but it didn’t reveal everything. Even still, the new console looks pretty much like a bigger, more refined Switch. Sure, that’s the straightforward and expected move from Nintendo. But it’s also exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

The first Switch was a revelation. When it launched, I marveled over being able to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on my TV and then take the console out of the dock and play in handheld mode curled up on the couch. Nintendo absolutely nailed the execution of combining its console and portable expertise into one great device, and ever since, the Switch has been a constant companion at home and while traveling.

You can always count on Nintendo for a surprise. This is the company that followed the Game Boy with a strange dual-screened handheld and broke out of its GameCube slump with a console focused on motion controls. It’s the company that lost its lead with the Wii U and then gambled on another innovation — the portable hybrid known as the Switch — to ultimately get back on top. All of those were big, risky swings that seemingly exemplified the company’s playful, experimental ethos.

The Switch 2, on the other hand, is… a bigger, better Switch. It’s kind of boring. But it’s also exactly the right move from Nintendo. At a time when people expect their games and experiences to carry over between devices, the old console paradigm of starting over with a new generation doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And since Nintendo hit a home run with the original Switch, it has the runway to be a little bit boring this time.

The arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2 heralds some much-needed improvements over its predecessor, especially its Joy-Con controllers. Here’s a quick breakdown of what the announcement trailer showed us about the Switch 2’s Joy-Cons.

Before the official reveal of the console, there were rumors alluding to how the new Joy-Cons would work and their internal mechanisms. The most significant rumor was that they were held to the console via magnets, and in the reveal video, that appears to be the case. The video features the Joy-Con seemingly snapping to a cover as though attracted by a magnetic force.

We don’t know when the Nintendo Switch 2 will launch (aside from later this year), but we do know when you can get your hands on the hardware — at least briefly. Nintendo is taking the Switch 2 on tour with a series of events it’s called the “Nintendo Switch 2 Experience.” Players around the globe will be able to check out the new console for themselves and presumably play brand-new games, like the just-teased next entry in the Mario Kart series.

The events will span North America, Asia, Oceania, and Europe and kick off in April — which is also when Nintendo will be hosting a Direct event to share more details on its new console. Here’s the full schedule, and you can keep an eye out for tickets right here. Nintendo says the tickets “will be made available through a free-to-enter, randomly selected drawing.”