Switch 2 is for everyone
With third-party games and a mouse, Nintendo is making their broadest appeal in years with Switch 2.
Before Nintendo unveiled the Switch 2, one of the questions surrounding the new console was what it’d be called. Switch 2 always felt like the most likely option, but the sentimental favorite was Super Switch, a reference to the beloved Super NES.
It turns out that Nintendo did consider that name. Takuhiro Dohta, director of Switch 2 at Nintendo, said they didn’t want the new console to appeal only to gamers “who prefer high-performance hardware.” This isn’t a mid-generation upgrade like the PS5 Pro. Dohta said they “wanted to create an experience that as many players as possible could enjoy.”
And that’s very much the feeling after the first wave of Switch 2 software was revealed at Wednesday’s Switch 2 Direct. There was something for everyone as Nintendo made possibly their broadest pitch yet not just to their base, but to all gamers.
It wasn’t the big third-party announcements that said this to me, or the revelation that the mysterious C button was a Zoom-like video conferencing feature. The thing that really stood out — and came as a surprise — was that the Switch 2 screen supports silky-smooth 120fps gameplay.
This is not a headline-grabbing feature that’ll draw in a mainstream audience; quite the opposite, it appeals to a very narrow set of gamers. But that’s just it: the Switch 2 has so many of these features, so many things that appeal greatly to a singular audience or work really well for a particular thing, that it ends up feeling like it’s for everyone because it accommodates any possible need.
Love Nintendo games? Plenty of those on Switch 2. Prefer third-party games? It’s got Cyberpunk 2077 and Split Fiction. What about indies? New Deltarune episodes. Hardcore Souls fan who scoffs at kiddy Nintendo games? Elden Ring and an exclusive FromSoftware game are coming. If you play on the go it’s still portable, of course; and it still docks with a TV if you only play at home. Stickler for performance? Switch 2 supports 120fps, 4K, HDR. Like PC games? Mouse control could make this the best console for PC ports.
When the Switch 2 was first unveiled, there was a backlash to how predictable it seemed. Nintendo is famous for basing their hardware around radically different ideas to anyone else; see the Wii’s emphasis on motion controls when the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were focusing on high-definition visuals. Nintendo consoles tend to force players and developers to tackle games in a wholly new way.
But that’s not true of either Switch console. Being a hybrid that’s both a portable console and a home one was unique, sure, but it doesn’t really change how you play a game, leading to the feeling that the Switch — and especially the Switch 2 — are conventional, safe, perhaps even boring.
Nintendo attacked this idea in an interview posted on Wednesday. Switch 2 producer Kouichi Kawamoto pointed to accessories like the Ring-Con for Ring Fit Adventure providing new ways to play even if the hardware isn’t different. And Dohta pointed out that the Switch (and Switch 2) hardware has a ton of different features already.
Dohta’s not wrong: I bet you’ve already forgotten that the right Joy-Con on the original Switch has an infrared sensor. The Switch was loaded with features, many which aren’t used. During development, there was talk of removing the touchscreen from the original Switch. This does make a degree of sense, since the whole idea is to be equally capable as both a portable and home console. You can’t use the touchscreen when the Switch is docked to the TV, making the two modes of play unequal.
But they kept it in, because late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said: “I’m sure there will be games that make use of it, so why not keep it?”
That thinking underpins the Switch 2’s new mouse functionality. On Wednesday Nintendo outlined the development process that led to the feature being added. It boiled down to: it was cheap, so why not?
I don’t know whether the mouse will actually be a popular way to control Switch 2 games or not, but that’s not really the point. The point is that it’s an option, one of many, and they all add up to make the Switch 2 extremely versatile.
And crucially, these options are additive. Yes, the Switch 2 Direct spent a decent chunk of time on third-party games, but the bulk of it was still centered on the main reason people buy a Nintendo console: Nintendo games. We got significant looks at Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, and enough games were shown off for Nintendo to release at least one every month from Switch 2’s launch to the end of the year.
(If I had to predict — okay, I don’t have to, I just really want to — we’ll see Drag x Drive in August, Metroid Prime 4 in September, Pokémon Legends Z-A in October, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment in November and Kirby Air Riders in December.)
But Nintendo’s games were never in doubt; we knew they’d show a strong slate of Switch 2 games. The real question, as the original Switch edges closer to becoming the best-selling game console of all time, was how Nintendo planned to top that. Wednesday’s event shows that Nintendo thinks the answer lies beyond their core fanbase. Switch 2 is aimed at everyone.
