[STEAM] Everything we know (and think we know) about the Nintendo Switch 2

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Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Leaks and rumors supported by multiple third-party manufactures make up the bulk of info out there about the new Switch.

Nintendo’s announcement of the Switch successor is imminent. Just how imminent is anyone’s guess with the company stating that it would

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before the end of its fiscal year in March. Rumors regarding the new Switch have been circulating for

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, but with less than two months to go until the promised deadline, and in the absence of any real information from Nintendo itself, speculation about the console, its specs, physical profile, and more have reached a fever pitch. So before the official reveal, here’s everything we think we know about Nintendo’s next console.

The only concrete, Nintendo-confirmed piece of information we know about the new console is that

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. Everything else has come by way of leaks and info supplied by third-party manufacturers. Late last year, one such manufacturer, Dbrand,

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. According to Dbrand CEO Adam Ijaz, the Killswitch is based on the “actual dimensions” of the new console obtained from a “3D scan of the real hardware.” But in an interview with The Verge, he declined to say exactly how or where Dbrand obtained such information.

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Image: Dbrand Dbrand’s render of its Killswitch 2 case. If the Killswitch’s design is indeed derived from the real thing, the new console will be larger than the Switch OLED with an 8-inch screen, and feature a kickstand that will span the length of the console similar to the OLED model. That the new Switch will be larger than previous iterations is supported by

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and

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as well as the idea that the

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instead of sliding and snapping into place. The new controller design will also incorporate magnets in the joysticks to combat against the dreaded “Joy-**** drift” that plagues the Switch even now.

CES 2025 provided even more fodder for the rumor mill, with accessory manufacturer Genki

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on the show floor. In an interview with The Verge, Genki CEO Eddie Tsai went into detail about what he knows about the new Switch reaffirming rumors regarding its larger size, magnetic Joy-****, and more.

While there’s a lot of speculation and potential evidence about what the new console will look like, there’s less circulating about what it can actually do. Beyond

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, there hasn’t been much out there about the console’s hardware specifications. Because Nintendo has never made consoles at the bleeding edge (

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) of graphics or processing power, it’s hard to guess how well the console will perform or what additional features, like a microphone, it’ll have.

Though the console’s internals remain a mystery, we do know that it’ll be backwards compatible with Switch games. We can also reasonably guess at least one game that’ll be a launch title:

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. Announced in 2017, and

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two years later,

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for the first time last year and shared a soft launch window of 2025. When Twilight Princess launched in 2006, it debuted on both the GameCube and served as a launch title for the Wii. Breath of the Wild was also cross-gen, debuting on the Wii U while launching with the Switch in 2017.

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Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge At CES 2025, The Verge saw a 3D printed mockup of the Nintendo Switch 2, here it is next to the Steam Deck. Knowing that the new Switch and Metroid Prime 4 both launch in 2025 and with Twilight Princess and BotW as examples, it’s speculated that the reason for Metroid 4’s long stint in development hell was, at least in part, because the game

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Also, you just can’t have a new Nintendo console without a Mario game.

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, and though there’s been other new releases like

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, there hasn’t been a new, standalone (put down your pitchforks

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fans) 3D Mario game since then. It’s all but assured one will be announced with the new Switch. The recently announced Pokémon Legends: Z-A is also a good launch title candidate as Nintendo curiously worded the game’s debut trailer with “releasing simultaneously worldwide on Nintendo Switch in 2025.”

[/url] For all the rumors and reasonable guesses supported by increasingly convincing evidence, it’s helpful to remember that at the end of the day, we’re still talking about Nintendo. The company has always tread

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from the other two major console manufacturers and that oddball strategy has mostly worked very well. Though the company is

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and

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(the Switch 2 was originally pegged for

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) plaguing its peers and indeed has its own

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with how it treats and pays its employees

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, of the major publishers, it seems to be the one that is best navigating the current crisis ravaging the industry.

It is folly trying to predict what Nintendo will do, and that applies to its new console. All we can count on is that it’s coming soon, and when it arrives, it’ll be big.

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