The Nintendo Switch 2, hands-on: It’s pretty good!

At a presentation unveiling the Nintendo Switch 2, longtime Nintendo producer Kouichi Kawamoto revealed that at one point, he considered calling the Switch’s successor the “Super Nintendo Switch.”

It would have been a nice nod to Nintendo’s second console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which followed the original NES about 35 years ago. But Kawamoto, along with directors Tetsuya Sasaki and Takuhiro Dohta, didn’t think that “Super Nintendo Switch” was quite the right fit.

It’s not that the Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t super – I’ll go out on a limb and call it the Pretty Good Nintendo Switch. Rather, the Switch 2 tries to take a console that’s already beloved and simply just make it better.

The Switch was well-received when it came out in 2017, but it exploded in popularity when the world went into lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, with sales more than doubling between March 2019 and March 2020. But even before the Animal Crossing: New Horizons craze, this trio of Nintendo bigwigs was already plotting the Switch’s successor.

“The three of us were assigned to [the Nintendo Switch 2] back in 2019,” Kawamoto said. “Even before that, the hardware team had always been looking into what kind of hardware can be used in the next iteration of the hardware, so it’s really hard to tell what the exact [start] was.”

Suddenly, Nintendo was trying to solve what has to be a really good problem for any company to face: There was so much demand for the Switch that the company couldn’t keep up with production.

“COVID certainly had a large impact in the development and design process,” Sasaki said. “Even with the chip shortage, we were working with our partners to be creative to work our way through that.”

Though we’re five years since the pandemic hit, chip shortages persist, thanks in no small part to the generative AI boom. That could be less than good news for the Switch and Switch 2, both of which use Nvidia processors.

Maybe that’s why Nintendo took so long to make what’s essentially just a Switch with extra bells and whistles. But why create an entirely new console when the Switch is still popular eight years later?

So what’s new this time?

The Switch 2 is a bit larger than its predecessor, measuring 4.5 inches tall by 10.7 inches wide when the Joy-Cons are connected. So, it’s about an inch longer and half an inch taller than the Switch, while it’s just about as thick. The Switch 2 is slightly heavier, but the difference in weight is minimal.

It definitely feels a little odd to hold the Switch 2 after years of getting used to the Switch, but the experience is similar to getting a new phone – you’ll feel the difference for a few minutes, but it doesn’t take long to get used to. I didn’t feel like I had to adjust how I played, which is saying something — I once complained that I needed to adjust to a friend’s Pro Controller for the Switch, which has resulted in years of jokes about how I am not “pro” enough to use it.

The display is bigger too, at 7.9-inches, though it’s LED only (sorry, OLED diehards) and has a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels that can manage 120hz. When docked to a TV, some games can render at 4K resolution at 60hz. The console also supports HDR10 and variable refresh rates up to 120hz.

As someone who only owns Nintendo consoles, I wouldn’t say I have particularly high standards when it comes to graphics. I never sprung for the OLED Switch, and I spend a lot of time playing games like Stardew Valley or Undertale, which aren’t exactly in want of the most powerful chips.

Sill, it was clear to see that the Nintendo Switch 2 presents a definite upgrade when it comes to graphical fidelity. I am a changed woman. I have seen the contours of Bowser’s scales, the spaces in between each tuft of Donkey Kong’s fur… which we don’t really need to see, but you can imagine how this step up can make games like Tears of the Kingdom look that much more magnificent.

These updates are most noticeable with games like the recent Zelda installments, but even with Hades II’s 2D art, you can see the difference in quality.

Nintendo was reluctant to give a clear answer when asked about the Switch 2’s battery, only saying that the battery will drain faster when players use new features like GameChat (more on that below). Nintendo claims the Switch 2 can go between 2 to 6.5 hours on one charge, compared to the Switch’s 4.5 to 9 hours. At least the USB-C port on the top will make it easier to continue playing while charging.

As for other useful upgrades, the Switch 2 comes with 256 GB of built-in storage, and the kickstand actually works well this time.

Putting the joy in Joy-Con 2

The entire event was jam-packed with too much news to fully digest (Silksong 2025!), but the new Joy-Cons were a buzzy topic of conversation among those of us who got to try out the new console.

Joystick drift was (and still is) a big problem on the original Switch’s controllers, so everyone was eager to see how the new version would compare. I only got to try it out for a few hours so I can’t promise you that the Switch 2’s joysticks will be drift-free, but Sasaki seemed confident.

“The new Joy-Con 2 controllers for the Nintendo Switch 2 have been re-designed from the ground up, and they’ve been designed to have bigger movements and smoother movements,” Sasaki said.

We also have a new way to connect Joy-Cons to the console body: magnets. The design feels much more intuitive than the design of the Switch, where Joy-Cons slide into place through a small plastic column. The Joy-Cons won’t detach easily either – you still need to press a little button on the back to be able to remove it from the screen.

Sasaki mentioned that Nintendo had been considering using magnets to connect Joy-Cons to the console since the original Switch was being developed. Though some players might worry that magnets won’t be as secure as the previous iteration, Kawamoto was confident it wouldn’t be an issue.

“The connector has a little bit of give, so if, for example, there is a lot of force applied, that give will let the force dissipate so it doesn’t apply too much onto the connector itself,” he said.

What makes the Joy-Con 2 really different, though, is that these can be used like a computer mouse: Each controller has a mouse sensor, a gyro sensor, and an accelerometer, letting you wave the controller around to move the camera, for example.

Nintendo showed off this mouse function with a game called Drag x Drive, a 3-on-3 wheelchair basketball game. You use the Joy-Cons to mimic the wheels on a wheelchair, sliding the controllers on a table forward and backward to move around – to shoot the basketball, you flick your wrist.

“As I was playing PC games […] I was thinking, what if we could bring this to the Nintendo Switch 2?” Kawamoto said. “Usually, the table is quite far away when you’re sitting on the sofa, so it depends on the material, but we have made adjustments so that you can control the mouse on your pants.”

Kawamoto made this revelation after I had already demoed Drag x Drive, so we’ll have to take his word for it. Apparently, your pants are your desk now.

Games like Drag x Drive are designed specifically for the mouse feature, but it seems like the novelty will wear off fast. The functionality is actually more impressive in games where it’s integrated as a small piece of the game play, rather than the whole meat of it.

For example, In Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the right Joy-Con transitions seamlessly between mouse mode and the normal mode. Instead of using the joystick to look around and change the angle of your sight, you can just move the controller around. This could be a way for Nintendo to cater to first-person shooter fans, who may be accustomed to using a mouse when playing games for the PC.

There’s a lot that’s different this time with the Joy-Cons, but thankfully, Nintendo is still letting us use the original Switch Joy-Cons with the Switch 2 via Bluetooth. You just can’t attach them to the console body for handheld play.

What do we know about Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza?

Nintendo also gave us a glimpse into the upcoming Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bonanza games. Yes, Mario Kart now has a cow as a playable character, and just wait until you see Boo’s aristocrat costume.

Both games appear to embrace a sort of faux open world. They’re not as primed for exploration and free play as, say, Breath of the Wild, but they feel like they will be more like Pokémon Legends: Arceus. You’re free to explore the landscape, but you are ultimately trying to accomplish certain goals in a certain order.

Mario Kart World transposes all of the playable race courses onto a world map. Will this finally answer my years-old question of how fantastical courses like Rainbow Road and real tracks like London Loop can exist in the same game where Mario is canonically from Flatbush, Brooklyn? A girl can dream.

The way this translates into the game is pretty cool. In previous Mario Kart games, grand prix races generally had you racing through a series of courses. In Mario Kart World, each race bleeds into the next.

In this 24-player grand prix, you have to finish in the top 20 to advance to the next race. Then, the top 16 advance, then the top 12, and so on until the final 4 players face off. There is no break between races, so you are zoomin’ all the way from the first lap of course until the end.

During matchmaking, the game lets you explore the world freely. If you run off the edge of a track, instead of falling into a bottomless void, you simply keep going. And if you land in the water, then you just keep driving until you reach another landmass, which turns into some other course on your map.

The demo version we played was far from comprehensive, obviously, but there’s a lot of potential for Nintendo to stick the landing with the concept of a broadly explorable Mario Kart.

Meanwhile, Donkey Kong Bananza marks the gorilla’s first 3D platformer in over 10 years. In the limited demo, you, as Donkey Kong, set out to rack up bananas and punch bad guys. You can punch enemies to defeat them, but certain foes are vulnerable to different attacks – flying enemies, for instance, can only be defeated by throwing rocks at them. Luckily, Donkey Kong can turn pretty much any bit of the ground into a throwable rock.

It’s not clear exactly how expansive the Bananza world is, but after the 20-minute demo, I felt like I had barely scratched the surface.

Some Switch games like Mario Party Jamboree are getting extra features in Switch 2 expansions. The game will use the attachable Switch 2 camera for special mini games that put a live video feed of each player into the game.

The camera seems like it’s built as a social feature for GameChat, but it can also put you into the game. In one mini-game, for example, players are tasked with stacking as many Koopas on their heads as possible – Koopas fall from above and you have to physically move your body back and forth to catch them.

The camera quality is nothing to write home about, but it functions as it should, and it brought us a second USB-C port, so we must be forever grateful.

Should you buy the Nintendo Switch 2?

At $450, the Nintendo Switch 2 comes with a hefty price tag for a handheld console.

By comparison, the Steam Deck starts at $400 for its simplest model, plus another $79 for its docking station, so the price is not unheard of. But Nintendo’s last two handheld consoles, the Switch and the WiiU, both launched with a $300 price tag, so some Nintendo fans could get a bit of sticker shock. Still, even hardware manufacturers have to deal with inflation.

The Switch 2’s improved specs, GameChat feature, and impending lineup of exclusive games make it an alluring console, but if you’re not a dedicated Nintendo fan and don’t know what VRR means, you probably won’t feel left out if you wait a little bit – especially if you’re not really drawn to the slate of exclusive games so far.

On the Nintendo side, titles like Mario Kart World, Metroid Prime 4, and Donkey Kong Bananza, and Kirby AirRiders have already been announced, and it’s likely that the next main series Pokémon game (not Legends Z-A) will bring us onto the Switch 2. Games from other developers like Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition, Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition, and Yakuza 0 are coming to the console, and FromSoftware’s The Duskbloods will see an exclusive Switch 2 release.

So, if you’re not dying to see what a 3D Donkey Kong platformer looks like, you’re probably safe holding off for a bit. On the other hand, Nintendo rarely ever reduces the price of its consoles, so if you know you’re going to cave at some point in the next eight or so years, then you might as well just take the plunge now.