With CES 2025 finally behind us, it’s time to move on to the next round of big hardware announcements. Rumors have surfaced in recent weeks, pointing to an imminent announcement for the next generation of Nintendo’s wildly successful Switch hybrid console.
In particular, a word from the stable industry Eurogamer (among other things) commits to an announcement of January 16 — that is, Thursday. If the big reveal is indeed coming this week, it points to a more gradual announcement. The company will likely provide information one Nintendo Direct at a time instead of one big main one with specs, availability and release titles.
We know for a fact that the company was targeting a Q1 announcement for the Switch 2 — specifically, before the end of March 2025. Another key thing confirmed by Nintendo is the device’s backwards compatibility with its predecessor . That’s good news for the 150 million or so who bought the first Switch.
The biggest question right now is just how big of an upgrade we’re talking about here. Nintendo’s console names have largely shown wide deviations for each subsequent generation. With a few exceptions – like the ill-fated Wii U – things were a lot less straightforward than, say, Sony’s PlayStation.
It’s reasonable to expect the Switch 2 to be an evolution of the existing product, rather than a substantial departure. After all, Nintendo spent some time in the wilderness before the Switch launched in March 2017. The convertible form factor and some really great titles were just what the company needed to get back into a dramatically different gaming landscape after the Wii’s stumble U.
There’s no doubt that the new console will have better specs than the original, but it’s also important to temper expectations given Nintendo’s history. The days of clashing with competitors on components like the GPU are decades in the company’s past.
Other rumors are just that: magnetic Joy-Cons and a jump in screen size to 8 inches from 6 on the classic Switch and 7 on the Switch OLED, which arrived in late 2021. Between this console upgrade and the only portable , budget model that Nintendo introduced with the Switch Lite in 2019, there have been upgrades along the way.
[Nintendo Switch 2 not pictured]
