The Nintendo Switch single handily revived and revolutionized portable consoles upon its release in 2017. The console was immensely popular and thanks to its ease of use, compatibility and multifunctionality very successful. Somehow Sony was still recovering from its PSVita disaster and had enough of portable consoles making the Steam Deck in 2022 the first real competitor in the space. And even then calling it a competitor is not quite fair either as it has a completely different use case. Anyway, the portable game console market really started to take off with many manufacturers building similar devices. The true original didn’t change much apart from an OLED version released somewhere in between. This is now set to change though!
Lots of fuzz around the release date
According to some leaked sources the new Switch could potentially launch sometime next month (October 2024). Some even say that the mass production of the console is already fully ready and running. Other say it will not happen this year and we can count on a release later in 2025. I personally think that we can expect a release in early 2025. A release this year seems rather unlikely although Nintento could also try to time the Christmas sales. It will remain of course unknown until Nintendo releases an official note.
What changes?
How does it look? What are the changes? These are all questions that we get increasingly more answers to with all of the leaks currently coming through. Regarding the looks there have been some leaked images that could very well be the actual design. Compared to its predecessor the new switch could come with a cleaner more sharp cornered style. The generall layout should stay the same though. According to multiple sources the joycons on the new switch will attach magnetically and feature one extra button each.
Battery life and performance are still unknown although some leaks hinted at the specifiactions of the device. One pictures shows what seems to be a rather small battery compartment in a Switch 2 prototype having some worried the battery life would be lacking behind but we don’t have any confirmed battery size ratings yet.
A leak of the hardware specifications notes the SOC as the model: GMLX30-R-A1 which could hint at another Nvidia Tegra chip in the handheld. This will be paired with 12GB of RAM and apparently 265GB of storage. We will have to wait for more leaks or official information to know for sure though and even then there could be different storage/performance tiers. Furthermore the leaks hint at a dual fan setup to cool the chip.
Switch 2 – the refresh we waited for?
The hard truth is we still don’t know the exact release dates and specs but the leaks hint at a quite promising handheld console that could bring fresh air into the increasingly PC only market. The buffed up cooling and new NVIDIA chip also hint at a big increase in performance although that will be only useful when there are enough good games released that will take advantage of the extra increase.
Whether the Switch 2 will be released next month or in a year, fans can be excited for an interesting release of the successor to one of the most successful handheld consoles of recent years.