Finally—after years of rumors and months of leaks, Nintendo has confirmed the biggest open secret in gaming: The Switch 2 is releasing this year.
The announcement doesn’t come as a surprise—especially in the wake of CES 2025, where several peripheral makers were bold enough to display replicas of the unrevealed hardware to showcase their Switch 2 accessories—but you might be shocked at just how closely the upcoming Switch 2 sticks to the form and function of its predecessor.
At a glance, the reveal video shows a … slightly bigger Switch. It's still a hybrid console, alternating between a portable handheld gaming device and a home entertainment system that outputs to your big-screen TV via a docking station. It still has a pair of detachable Joy-Con controllers that seem to still function as two independent controllers for the ever-present, on-the-go multiplayer. It runs Mario Kart! For all intents and purposes, this is Switch 2: Switch Harder.
In an industry where generational leaps are usually accompanied by the breathless espousing of new features and ever more powerful hardware, the Switch 2 reveal feels oddly restrained. Even the Sony PlayStation 5 Pro, a mid-generation upgrade, had more hype surrounding its announcement. Nintendo has rarely played that game though—arguably the last time it did was way back in the SNES era, where it boasted of the 16-bit console’s “Mode 7” graphics prowess over the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive—here in 2025, it doesn't need to. The reason is simple: The existing Switch is already a market leader, so why change what works?
