Mirror file photo by Patrick Waksmunski
If, like myself, you’re a fan of Nintendo video games and find yourself scratching your head and wondering how exactly you should feel after last week’s Direct presentation officially announcing the Nintendo Switch 2, well, you’re not alone.
It’s why this column is so late getting out — I really didn’t quite know how to react.
While there were plenty of things to take away from April 2’s roughly 62-minute presentation, there were also plenty of things that, as a longtime gamer, left me wondering what exactly the people in charge in Japan were thinking.
There were plenty of game announcements — including new system exclusive titles “Mario Kart World,” “Donkey Kong Bonanza,” “Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment,” “Kirby Air Riders,” “Survival Kids” and a new title from FromSoftware, “The Duskbloods.”
Nintendo Gamecube games are finally making it to Nintendo Switch Online Service and will be exclusive to the new system, and it will also see ports of major third-party titles such as “Elden Ring,” “Cyberpunk 2077,” “Madden NFL,” “Hogwarts Legacy” and “Street Fighter 6.”
The new system will finally be on a level playing field with its competitors with native game voice and video chat, with built-in chat functionality as part of the controller (so now we know what mysterious “C” button was that people were talking about several months back when photos leaked online).
According to information released to the press afterward, third-party cameras and microphones should be compatible, so while Nintendo is going to sell a camera peripheral, you can also more than likely use the equipment you already have laying around the house, which was a nice, consumer-friendly touch, as well as some more details on virtual game card sharing among family groups and the first look at the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller (it has a headphone port!).
I am particularly looking forward to this as the original Pro Controller was easily one of the best purchases I’ve ever made during the Switch lifecycle, with its longevity and durability being its most admirable qualities.
We also learned, much farther into the show than I would have guessed at first (roughly 20 minutes or so), that Nintendo will once again be choosing to launch the Switch 2 on Thursday, June 5, 2025. So for those of you who, like myself, were probably expecting (counting on) this to drop sometime in late October/November leading into the Christmas
shopping season … well I hope you started saving early.
But sharp-eyed viewers may have noted some interesting details amongst all the hubbub and fanfare that left many, including myself, just feeling odd.
Like the fact that the only Switch 2 exclusive I did not mention before, “Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour,” is not the pack-in virtual system manual that most at first glance probably expected it to be. Nintendo is going to charge you a fee to get this extremely niche content. It probably won’t be more than $10 USD, but the fact remains that they’re actually going to charge people for something that should just be a part of the already somewhat lofty $449.99 cost for the base console.
The new system will also require the use of microSD express cards to expand the system’s storage space, which will likely become a necessity for gamers with larger libraries, even with the new system boasting 256 GB of internal storage out of the box. Standard microSD cards, like the ones that are compatible with the current Switch family, will not be compatible with Switch 2, but that is due to the need for high speed data transfers and the ever-growing file sizes that video games have ballooned to over the past 15 years.
Something touched on briefly after the release date reveal were the three types of games — Nintendo Switch 2 games, which are designed take advantage of the systems full capabilities; compatible Switch titles, as not all Switch titles will be playable on the new system; and Nintendo Switch 2 edition games, games that were released originally on Switch and are set to “receive upgraded versions that will offer things like improved visuals, unique ways to play on Switch 2, and more,” Takuhiro Dohta, the director for Nintendo Switch 2, said during the presentation last week.
Some of the games receiving such upgrades will be “Super Mario Party Jamboree,” the long-awaited and still forthcoming “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond” and both of the Switch’s major “The Legend of Zelda” titles, “Breath of the Wild” and “Tears of the Kingdom.”
To create even more confusion though, there are two different types of versions of THOSE games — games like the Zelda titles that will be receiving purely graphical and resolution enhancements, while titles like “Kirby’s Forgotten Land” and “Super Mario Party Jamboree” will also be receiving new story and other elements as part of those upgrades.
And to further complicate the matter, while the Zelda game upgrades will be cost-included for Nintendo Switch Online expansion pak subscribers, non-expansion pak subscribers will have to pay some kind of fee to upgrade their games to these new versions, we’re hearing somewhere from $10-$20, depending on what all is upgraded.
Are you confused yet? Because I sure as heck was. And Nintendo, once again, has no one to blame for it all but themselves.
Mirror copy editor Dan Isenberg can be reached at disenberg@altoonamirror.com or on X @TheseDanTweets.
