It’s been months since the announcement, but Nintendo is finally giving a closer look at the Switch 2. A Nintendo Direct stream starts April 2 at 9:00 a.m. ET that will reveal new details about the upcoming system. Hopefully those details will include features, games, price, and release date, which is why we’ll be watching it very closely. In fact, we’ll be watching it right here! And by right here, I mean you can actually watch it right here:
This isn’t my first rodeo on a Nintendo console launch. Your fun Uncle Will (no relation to any uncle who works at Nintendo) has covered and reviewed every Nintendo system of the last three generations. That’s the last dozen years of Nintendo, including the Wii U, 2DS, New 2DS XL, New 3DS, New 3DS XL, and of course the Switch (and Switch Lite, and Switch OLED). I’m also convinced that I coined the term “Wiimote” around E3 2006, but I can’t actually prove it. So I’m your guy for the closest look at every detail Nintendo gives about the Switch 2, and what it means.
Stay tuned to this page, and refresh regularly during the stream, for announcements, analysis, and reactions to what’s unveiled! Oh, and if you want to start from the beginning, scroll all the way to the bottom. New posts show up at the top!
Nintendo Direct Switch 2 Live Blog
5 minutes ago | April 1, 2025
The C Button Mystery
The Switch 2’s right Joy-Con has a mysterious C button under the home button. There’s a lot of speculation about it, and until Nintendo tells us what it does its purpose remains a question. The Switch already has a separate capture button, and the home button already fulfills the system menu purpose, and the plus and minus buttons control in-game menus and actions. It’s really not clear what the button could do.
One theory Jordan noted, and that I would love to see, is that it’s a Cast button for connecting a Switch to the Switch 2 for a dual-screen experience. Maybe for Wii U and 3DS games? There are a lot of amazing games locked on the 3DS because of its dual-screen design. That seems like a pretty far out-there idea, but so were the Wii U and DS in the first place.
37 minutes ago | April 1, 2025
The Switch News Won’t Stop on Wednesday
The Nintendo Direct tomorrow will show off the console itself, but Nintendo will keep the news coming until the weekend. The Nintendo Treehouse (Nintendo of America’s development, localization, and hype-building division) will have its own streams April 3 and 4 at 10:00 a.m. ET, also on Nintendo’s YouTube and Twitch channels. They’ll have hands-on gameplay for Switch 2 games, which should give us a closer look at how the system performs.
41 minutes ago | April 1, 2025
Sigh. Labo Was a Good Idea, and It Probably Won’t be on the Switch 2
I really liked Nintendo’s Labo kits. They were a fun gimmick to review, but more than that they were a really clever way to make basic engineering and mechanisms seem fun and engaging for kids. Even if they weren’t really educational sets, they were just very charming and interesting, and there wasn’t anything like it.
If you aren’t familiar with Labo, it was a series of sets where you could assemble different accessories out of cardboard and put your Switch in it for real-life games. There was a variety kit with toys like a fishing rod and a piano, a robot kit with a mechanical backpack, a vehicle kit with a steering wheel, and a VR kit that turned the Switch into a VR headset. None of them offered very deep experiences, but each one showed off some real ingenuity in turning cardboard and rubber bands into working machines, and that sort of cleverness could really encourage a kid to get into engineering. At least, that’s what I thought.
Nintendo hasn’t touched Labo for a few years, and since each one was designed for the regular Switch (the Switch OLED was actually slightly too big for the VR kit) they will probably count among the Switch games that will not in fact work on the Switch 2. I’d love to see Nintendo revisit the concept, but it sadly just seemed to not catch on.
1 hour ago | April 1, 2025
Switch 1 Games to Play on the Switch 2
Nintendo had another Direct last week highlighting upcoming games that will be coming out on the standard Switch. The biggest games were Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which got close looks. They’re major Switch games, and they’re also probably going to be major Switch 2 launch games. The big question is if those will be two separate things.
Game releases as new console generations come out often include ports between last-gen and next-gen systems. Did you know that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had a Wii U version? The Sheikah slate was actually designed to look like a Wii U gamepad, not a Switch! There wasn’t any backwards compatibility between the Switch and the Wii U, though, but The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess got GameCube and Wii ports when those consoles were passing the torch between them, and you could play GameCube games on the Wii. Since the Switch 2 is presumably a proper generation upgrade over the Switch, Metroid Prime and Pokemon Legends will probably have individual Switch and Switch 2 versions. The former will play on either device, and the latter will specifically take advantage of the Switch 2’s extra power for hopefully higher resolutions and better framerates.
Rhythm Heaven and Tomodachi Life are also getting sequels on the Switch. They aren’t as graphically intensive as Metroid or Zelda, and separate Switch 2 versions probably aren’t necessary.
2 hours ago | April 1, 2025
The Youth(ful Adults) Want the Switch 2
Millennials and Zoomers are looking forward to the Switch 2, and interested in buying it, and we have actual numbers on that. According to a survey performed by our colleagues at , more than half (58%) of US adults who actively play games are interested in getting the Switch 2. Among them, Gen Z and Millennials are especially interested at 70% and 71% respectively.
Price is the biggest sticking point in the survey, and among a list of deciding factors that would influence a purchase 27% of all US adult gamers and 31% of Gen Z highlight how much the system will cost.
goes into the survey results in much more detail, so check out their analysis.
The survey doesn’t include non-adults, so we don’t know how interested Gen Alpha is or what would convince them to buy the Switch 2 if they could afford it. Maybe if it comes out of a toilet loaded with rizz aura and it isn’t and/or is sigma? Look, I don’t know. I grew up in the 90s and we had really stupid tastes then, too.
2 hours ago | April 1, 2025
Sailing the Seas of Rumors: What We Don’t Know
Besides what Nintendo has already told us, the Switch 2 has been surrounded by rumors for years, ranging from its very existence (a perennial claim since 2021, when the Switch OLED made it clear we weren’t getting a Pro/New Switch before the sequel system) to its processing power. Those rumors have come from leaks of varying levels of confidence, or purely from speculation.
At this point, the biggest mysteries are how much power the Switch 2 has, how much it will cost, and when it will come out. Hardware specs have been the most wobbly, and they probably won’t be cleared up during the Nintendo Direct because the company isn’t one for highlighting numbers over features. From a few different leaks the best estimates we have is that the Switch 2 will have 8GB to 12GB of RAM and 64GB to 256GB of storage, and in terms of power it might use a version of the ARM Cortex-A78AE, an eight-core processor processor that’s mostly designed for self-driving vehicles. I don’t know, maybe?
Ultimately, the numbers in the specs don’t matter. What matters is how the Switch 2 performs, and unlike for PC hardware we can’t exactly compare numbers directly between different architectures and platforms. We also can’t benchmark them, so we’re just going to have to see what games look like and how well they play. And we probably won’t get the best idea of that tomorrow through a Nintendo Direct stream.
We will likely get the release date and price, though. Those rumors have settled into reasonable estimates of a June or July launch, and a $400 retail price. These definitely come more from speculation based on the game console market as it is now and the timing of the Nintendo Direct than they do from alleged leaks. We’ll find out if those estimates are right tomorrow.
2 hours ago | April 1, 2025
The (Mostly Confirmed) Story So Far
Nintendo officially announced the Switch 2 in January, but with very few details besides a video looking over the whole system. It was better than nothing, since it actually let us see what the Switch 2 looks like, and I gleaned five pretty solid details from that video. That along with some other information Nintendo has released about the Switch 2 gives us an early picture that will get filled out tomorrow. Here’s what we know, or are at least pretty sure of:
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It’s the same form factor as the Switch
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It’s backwards compatible, for both digital and physical Switch games
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The screen is bigger
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The Joy-Cons are now magnetically attached, with physical contact points
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The Joy-Cons might have mouse functions
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A new Mario Kart will probably be a launch game
That’s what Nintendo has pretty much confirmed, but that’s not the whole picture, and there are a ton of gaps.
3 hours ago | April 1, 2025
How to Watch
This one’s easy (and we have a longer story explaining it in more detail). The YouTube stream is right above here, so you can watch from this page. You’ll have to reload for updates during the Nintendo Direct, though, which means you can also watch it on a few other places:
