Nintendo’s announcement of the Swap successor is imminent. Simply how imminent is anybody’s guess with the corporate stating that it will reveal information on the console earlier than the tip of its fiscal yr in March. Rumors relating to the brand new Swap have been circulating for greater than a yr, however with lower than two months to go till the promised deadline, and within the absence of any actual data from Nintendo itself, hypothesis concerning the console, its specs, bodily profile, and extra have reached a fever pitch. So earlier than the official reveal, right here’s all the things we predict we find out about Nintendo’s subsequent console.
The one concrete, Nintendo-confirmed piece of data we all know concerning the new console is that it’ll be backwards appropriate with the Swap. All the pieces else has come by means of leaks and information provided by third-party producers. Late final yr, one such producer, Dbrand, debuted its Killswitch carrying case meant for the Swap 2. In line with Dbrand CEO Adam Ijaz, the Killswitch is predicated on the “precise dimensions” of the brand new console obtained from a “3D scan of the actual {hardware}.” However in an interview with The Verge, he declined to say precisely how or the place Dbrand obtained such data.
If the Killswitch’s design is certainly derived from the actual factor, the brand new console can be bigger than the Swap OLED with an 8-inch display screen, and have a kickstand that can span the size of the console much like the OLED mannequin. That the brand new Swap can be bigger than earlier iterations is supported by leaks and information from different accent producers in addition to the concept the Pleasure-Con controllers will connect through magnet as an alternative of sliding and snapping into place. The brand new controller design will even incorporate magnets within the joysticks to fight in opposition to the dreaded “Pleasure-Con drift” that plagues the Swap even now.
CES 2025 supplied much more fodder for the rumor mill, with accent producer Genki displaying off a 3D printed mock-up of the console on the present ground. In an interview with The Verge, Genki CEO Eddie Tsai went into element about what he is aware of concerning the new Swap reaffirming rumors relating to its bigger dimension, magnetic Pleasure-Con, and extra.
Whereas there’s plenty of hypothesis and potential proof about what the brand new console will appear like, there’s much less circulating about what it will possibly really do. Past an alleged picture of the console’s motherboard, there hasn’t been a lot on the market concerning the console’s {hardware} specs. As a result of Nintendo has by no means made consoles on the bleeding edge (or, actually, even the chopping one) of graphics or processing energy, it’s laborious to guess how properly the console will carry out or what further options, like a microphone, it’ll have.
Although the console’s internals stay a thriller, we do know that it’ll be backwards appropriate with Swap video games. We are able to additionally moderately guess at the very least one sport that’ll be a launch title: Metroid Prime 4. Introduced in 2017, and present process a change of studio and a improvement reboot two years later, Nintendo debuted gameplay footage for the primary time final yr and shared a tender launch window of 2025. When Twilight Princess launched in 2006, it debuted on each the GameCube and served as a launch title for the Wii. Breath of the Wild was additionally cross-gen, debuting on the Wii U whereas launching with the Swap in 2017.
Realizing that the brand new Swap and Metroid Prime 4 each launch in 2025 and with Twilight Princess and BotW as examples, it’s speculated that the rationale for Metroid 4’s lengthy stint in improvement hell was, at the very least partially, as a result of the sport was being tooled for both the Switch and its successor. Additionally, you simply can’t have a brand new Nintendo console with no Mario sport. Tremendous Mario Odyssey was a Swap launch title, and although there’s been different new releases like Tremendous Mario Marvel, there hasn’t been a brand new, standalone (put down your pitchforks Bowser’s Fury followers) 3D Mario sport since then. It’s all however assured one can be introduced with the brand new Swap. The just lately introduced Pokémon Legends: Z-A can be a great launch title candidate as Nintendo curiously worded the sport’s debut trailer with “releasing concurrently worldwide on Nintendo Swap in 2025.”
For all of the rumors and affordable guesses supported by more and more convincing proof, it’s useful to do not forget that on the finish of the day, we’re nonetheless speaking about Nintendo. The corporate has all the time tread a separate and unpredictable path from the opposite two main console producers and that oddball technique has largely labored very properly. Although the corporate is not immune to the same layoffs and delays (the Swap 2 was initially pegged for a 2024 launch) plaguing its friends and certainly has its personal manifold points with the way it treats and pays its workers and contractors, of the most important publishers, it appears to be the one that’s greatest navigating the present disaster ravaging the trade.
It’s folly attempting to foretell what Nintendo will do, and that applies to its new console. All we will depend on is that it’s coming quickly, and when it arrives, it’ll be massive.