Nintendo is hoping that the Nintendo Switch 2 will outdo its predecessor in at least one way: By actually standing up to the ravages of time.
In a blog post following the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, the Nintendo Switch 2's senior director, Takuhiro Dohta discussed the enhancements that have been made between the original console and its successor. While his colleagues pointed to factors like memory capacity, battery life, and the Switch 2's new screen, Dohta said that all of those changes had been made with one aim in the back of Nintendo's mind.
"Because Switch has been accepted by many players and played over a long period of time, in the same way, we wanted Switch 2 to be a dedicated game system with performance that can stand the test of time. We carefully considered the balance between processing capability and system memory capacity, and we believe we've managed to create a system that players won't feel is outdated later down the line."
Dohta is right in one sense – at 150 million sales, the OG Switch certainly has been accepted by many players, and it's clung on for a long time, even in the face of Sony and Microsoft's new consoles. In another sense, however, I'm not sure he's quite as correct – I'm not sure that the Switch has fully "stood the test of time."
While there are some beautiful Switch games, there are also others that simply don't hold up as well as you'd hope, or never really looked that good in the first place.
Pokemon's open-world efforts spring to mind, while the likes of Wind Waker continue to look beautiful. And, while a handful of massive open-world games like The Witcher 3 did make it to Switch, they did so with some real technical wizardry, and plenty of artfully-cut corners.
In the end, it's the Switch 2 that's already laying claim to last-gen's biggest titles, with the likes of Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, and Cyberpunk 2077 all heading to the new console.
The Nintendo Switch 2 era could be bittersweet, as former staff point out that 40-year veterans like Shigeru Miyamoto and Zelda and Metroid legends are nearing their retirements.
