Summary
- Switch 2 sold millions fast, but much appeal is Nintendo games and upscaled Switch titles.
- Performance lags behind current PC handhelds and consoles, risking future third-party support.
- Handheld PCs, frequent hardware refreshes, and cheaper game libraries threaten Switch 2’s longevity.
The Switch 2 is off to a pretty glorious start. Nintendo sold over 3.5 million units in four days, and has sold over 6 million units in total since then. The console has broken multiple records, despite only having two high-profile first-party games to speak of: Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. That means the rest of its appeal lies in playing Switch 1 games at higher framerates, and in third-party titles that were previously impossible to run, such as Cyberpunk 2077.
I haven’t bought a Switch 2 so far. There is a strong chance I’ll get one at some point, especially with a seven-year-old in my house — yet I’m wondering if that’s going to be a smart decision, looking not just at the specs of the console, but how the PC gaming market is evolving. It’s entirely possible that by 2027, the Switch 2 will be relegated to the same status its predecessor earned — mostly good for Nintendo titles, with only a hint of the third-party games available elsewhere.
You missed the starting gun
The Switch 2’s specs problem
Functionally, there’s nothing wrong with the Switch 2. Its 7.9-inch touchscreen is an LCD instead of an OLED panel, but it’s pleasant to look at, with crisp 1080p resolution and HDR10 support. Docked, the console supports resolutions up to 4K at 60 frames per second. It also has majorly improved Joy-Cons, including mouse functions, and some welcome software changes, namely GameChat. It’s finally possible to talk (and stream!) on a Nintendo console without using a phone app.
My concern is a recurring one with Nintendo: outdated performance. While the Switch 2 is massively improved over the original, its performance still sits below the Xbox Series S, released in 2020. Its CPU isn’t that far ahead of 2013’s PlayStation 4, let alone 2024’s PlayStation 5 Pro.
Sales of third-party Switch games have proven tepid so far, which puts them at risk of slumping even further once the Switch 2 becomes incapable of supporting the latest and greatest.
The company gets away with this because most Switch games are deliberately stylized. Donkey Kong Bananza would certainly look amazing with PS5-level graphics, but because it’s cartoonish, Nintendo doesn’t have to bother with dense textures or polygon counts. That’s just fine, in my books — a good game is a good game, and the demand for photorealistic graphics is pushing some studios towards collapse. It takes a huge team to make a Call of Duty title look as good as it does, but most games don’t pull in that kind of cash.
For now, the Switch 2 is powerful enough that it’s attracting third-party games that might’ve otherwise been limited to PC, Xbox, and PlayStation owners. Aside from Cyberpunk, some of the ones that are out or coming soon include Elden Ring, Street Fighter 6, Borderlands 4, Civilization 7, and 007: First Light. That’s not bad, considering that all of these are extremely gorgeous flagship releases.
Sales of third-party Switch games have proven tepid so far, though. That puts them at risk of slumping completely once the Switch 2 becomes incapable of supporting the latest and greatest. Speaking of which, we should supposedly see a new Call of Duty on Nintendo’s platform at some point — but there’s no sign yet that it’ll be Black Ops 7, despite that title having already been announced for other platforms. If the game comes and goes without Switch support, it may be a harbinger of dark times.
The looming PC threat
2025 isn’t 2017
All this would be fine if the Switch 2 were arriving in similar circumstances to the Switch 1, with the portable market all to itself. But it’s not, thanks to the Valve Steam Deck. The device was a surprise hit when it shipped in 2022, bringing a Switch-like convenience to PC games, including titles you’d never think would run on a handheld — much less well. The Deck-optimized version of Cyberpunk is surprisingly fluid and sexy, even if it doesn’t support effects like ray tracing.
More importantly, the Deck has spawned an entire industry of handheld PCs. Valve’s biggest competition is ASUS, which already has the ROG Ally and Ally X, and is preparing Xbox versions in partnership with Microsoft. Given other companies like MSI in hot pursuit, there’s a growing chance that these products are going to start pulling away Switch 2 buyers, particularly with Nintendo no longer having a giant price advantage. Yes, an $800 ROG Ally X is considerably more expensive than the Switch 2’s $450, but you can get an OLED Steam Deck for $549 and save a fortune on your game library. PC titles tend to go on sale in a matter of months, whereas Nintendo rarely ever slashes prices on its first-party catalog. If you’re really patient, Steam Store discounts can be steep — sometimes as high as 80 or 90%.
At a minimum, there will be handhelds capable of utterly annihilating the Switch 2 before any serious effort starts on its successor.
Handheld PC makers also seem committed to more frequent hardware refreshes than Nintendo. The Ally X shipped just a year after the original, and while there’s no sign of a Steam Deck 2 yet, Valve itself has hinted that it could debut as soon as 2026. A four-year turnaround is nothing next to the eight years it took to get the Switch 2.
At a minimum, then, there will be handhelds capable of utterly annihilating the Switch 2 before any serious effort starts on its successor. PC gaming in general has also been on the upswing — a cheap gaming laptop can be a much better buy for some households, since it’ll eclipse most handhelds in performance, while doubling as tool for work and school projects. You don’t need a rig with an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and an Nvidia RTX 5080 card just to play Fortnite or Grounded 2.
Will handheld and laptop PCs threaten Nintendo as a company, or simply the success of the Switch 2? No, definitely not. There are already too many Switches in the wild, and you should never underestimate the value of Nintendo exclusives — you will never see a 3D Mario or Zelda title on a third-party system. If I’m feeling a little gunshy about the Switch 2’s specs, however, there are probably many other gamers in the same boat.
