@rallydefault
This isn't like the Wii or Switch generations where Nintendo couldn't tout visuals because the Wii and Switch aren't much more powerful than the GCN and Wii U respectively. The Switch 2 is a substantial leap over the Switch and Nintendo will make that obvious through games. If you go back to 2011 when Nintendo introduced the Wii U, they made it clear that the Wii U was an HD console that was significantly more powerful than the Wii.
It won't just be about visual improvements either, much of the emphasis will be on improvements in scope and scale, ala Mario Kart having 2× more characters and larger courses, the next 3D Mario being open world while maintaining 60 FPS (my speculation), etc
@skywake
You know, now that you mention it, maybe Street Pass is kind of a dumb idea. I mean, the Switch 2 is massive... not super portable lol
@Bolt_Strike
There are lots of people who are thinking MK9 may be cross gen.
@westman98
Same comment. People who do this stuff for a living haven't seen anything yet that indicates MK9 can't run on the original Switch. I know you'll disagree, but even Prime 4 looks gorgeous and full of life - I guarantee most people would have a hard time looking at that trailer and saying which system it's going to be available for.
My point is: graphics and under-the-hood improvements like 24 racers or whatever ain't gonna sell Switch 2s to most Nintendo buyers. I would wager a near-majority of Nintendo buyers don't give a flying fart if DOOM Eternal can run on the Switch 2. That sort of thing hasn't sold Nintendo home consoles since the SNES.
Nintendo's handhelds, the Wii, and now the Switch have shown us that Nintendo is at their most successful when they deliver hardware that allows people flexibility in the way they can play. And on the games front, creativity is the key, not power.
@rallydefault
Personally I would put much doubts on Mario Kart 9 being cross-gen. I would agree that it doesn't appear to be doing anything particularly crazy from the pre-release clips they've shown super-imposed onto a section of a larger video in a larger trailer. But it's also Mario Kart which is a racing game and so is by definition fairly self contained and a genre we kinda hit a fidelity cap for a long time ago. Sure, we don't know what tricks it has up its sleave. For all we know it supports 120fps or 6 player split-screen multiplayer. But from what we've been shown.... sure... it probably could
In any case, and I'm being generous by pointing to DF here I think, just because Digital Foundry spots aliasing doesn't mean it's cross-gen. It's almost surely Switch 2 exclusive. Why? Because Nintendo wouldn't put it in the trailer for Switch 2 if it was cross-gen
I would also suggest that while you are right that the end-user is generally oblivious to what hardware is capable of what. They really, genuinely don't care. What they care about is what games are on it and whether or not they're any good. You might well say this game could've been cross-gen or this other game could've been on Switch 1. And sometimes you might even be right. But if it's not, if it's Switch 2 only, then you need to buy a Switch 2 for it
Like.... Mario Kart 64 probably could've run on the Playstation. It's not a game that hammers the CPU, it's not a particularly RAM heavy title, with work you could've done it fairly easily. And that's something that's probably true for most games that were on the N64, less so the other way around. But that being true did not change the fact if you wanted to play Mario Kart 64 you had to buy an N64
@skywake
Oh, for sure. You know me: when a new generation arrives, I think it should be full steam ahead and none of this cross-gen nonsense that has held back the last couple transitions (this most recent gen for Xbox and PS was especially egregious). I think it would be the dumbest move ever if MK9 is cross-gen.
I guess my point to that other guy is that I’d wager a healthy percentage of Switch owners don’t care about games like Elden Ring and Doom. Like, more power is great, but it’s a waste of time to demonstrate it by announcing games that Nintendo players historically haven’t supported since forever. Those are third-party games in genres that just don’t tend to jive with “Nintendo” gamers, so even though it would be beautiful and impressive if the Switch 2 can offer them, I don’t think they would help sell systems or generate hype early in its life. GTA VI is the biggest offender for this - sure, great, but I have zero desire to play that game, and I know I’m far from alone on that (maybe not on this forum lol).
There are tons of third-party games that are better fits, though. I’ve said a million times that the FF VII remakes would do well on the Switch 2, and at the same time they are graphically demanding and impressive. Same thing could go for an Astro Bot (never gonna happen obviously) or if Sony would ever bring over Ratchet or Jak or Sly Cooper. Those would be insane, genre-“appropriate” games that appeal to Nintendo’s core audience while still showing is the Switch 2 is worth buying because of its higher capabilities.
@rallydefault
If what you say is somehow true and Nintendo players don't care about better visuals/scope/scale or improved 3rd party support for Switch 2, then I suspect they'll care far, far less about stuff like a better UI or eShop.
@westman98
You don’t think Nintendo gamers care about UI themes and icons and stickers and stuff like that? Did you own a 3DS? Lol
As for the eShop, that’s the definition of “ease of access” at work. Love it or hate it, but the Switch serves a largely casual audience. And a casual audience is going to go with the easiest way of doing things. Making the eShop less cluttered, faster, and more integrated is only going to solidify future transactions from casual players who pop on it once every few months.
@rallydefault I think the extensive crossgen period adds in an extra factor. Plenty of people who bought Switch 1 for exclusives and PS/Xbox for 3rd party support are still on PS4/XB1 because of crossgen so with the crossgen period coming to a close nowadays with stuff like GTA6 skipping the platform, those people will have to choose which system to upgrade this year.
If they cared about running 3rd party games at higher resolution and frame rate they would've upgraded to PS5/Series X|S already so Switch 2 having strong 3rd party support would result in people not only prioritizing Switch 2 but Switch 2 being the only one they upgrade.
But if Switch 2 misses out on the big 3rd party support, it'll be more split. People who prioritize Nintendo exclusives upgrade to Switch 2 meanwhile the ones that prioritize 3rd party support upgrade to PS5.
@westman98
I agree, but what I’m saying is the age-old expression: Nintendo gamers like Nintendo games, almost exclusively and to a fault. Switch has been a breakthrough for indies and stuff, so maybe that will continue with some other genres.
@Grumblevolcano
Isn’t it wild that like 4 years into this gen or whatever we’re finally getting some big games that are gonna force an upgrade?
@rallydefault
Sure, Nintendo players prioritize Nintendo games, but that doesn't mean Nintendo should prioritize showing off UI/eShop over showing off 3rd party content at the Switch 2 Direct.
For the UI discussion, I'm really hoping it makes an appearance in the direct because that is one of the things I'm most interested in. However, I could also imagine a 'let's meet the Switch 2 interface' being a seperate little 3 minute YouTube video.
I’ve said a million times that the FF VII remakes would do well on the Switch 2, and at the same time they are graphically demanding and impressive..
+1 to this. I'm 70% expecting Remake in the direct next week. I think it's inevitable Sqeenix will make an appearance; it's possible there will be some new game instead and the Remake port will be later, but not porting it at all would be leaving money on the table.
@FishyS I also agree with this. There were a lot of rumors swirling too that FF VII remake was one of the games Nintendo was using to show off the Switch 2 to devs, so it would make sense.
As for the eShop, that’s the definition of “ease of access” at work. Love it or hate it, but the Switch serves a largely casual audience. And a casual audience is going to go with the easiest way of doing things. Making the eShop less cluttered, faster, and more integrated is only going to solidify future transactions from casual players who pop on it once every few months.
These are important things, and I would agree entirely, but I also don't think they're going to pause in the middle of a 40-60min long presentation which they've telegraphed for a couple of months which kicks off the launch of a new console generation to show something like this..........
........ that stuff, to the extent that it happens, is supplemental media fodder. Not the main event. The presentation will be about the games. And if it's not then I would start asking questions
@skywake
I think you’re not being very creative with your envisioning of this event. They don’t need to cordon off “hardware” stuff into a solid block of time like some monolith.
They can weave in a minute or two of updated eShop discussion right after showing off a game, for instance. Want to buy a few pieces of DLC for your village in the new Animal Crossing game (lol) coming this holiday? Well, you’ll just pop over to the eShop, now with its streamlined…
And then right on to showing Doom Dark Ages and then -boom- into a minute or two showing how that game can use the new mouse functionality. And want to relive Doom and Doom Eternal? Well, thanks to backwards compatibility with faster load times and (sometimes) paid updates (mega lol)…
A little here, a little there - at the end of the presentation you got like 20ish minutes of hardware-related stuff, but it was shown in ways that connected to the games and showed its usefulness.
@rallydefault
I would suggest taking a step back and once again look at the January 2017 presentation for the Switch. The closest equivalent to this April Direct we have in terms of when it's happening in the launch cycle and the amount of information we have going into it.
In that presentation they did cover hardware. It was a small percentage of the presentation but they did cover it. But it was very, very superficial stuff and mostly stuff that could be gleaned from the original trailer. They listed the box contents, gave battery life a shout, said you could charge over a USB Type C connector, said it had a touch screen and went over JoyCon features. They also mentioned the existence of a Pro Controller as well as pricing and dates. But not once in that presentation did they show the OS, talk about the screen resolution, show the eShop, talk about quick resume or mention the screen resolution or anything like that
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they will talk about hardware. It is afterall the first presentation for a new piece of hardware. There are things they'll want to explain at the very least so people have context for other things they may want to say. It would be odd, for example, if in that original presentation they had shown a trailer for ARMS before telling you that the JoyCon had motion controls. But I fully expect those kinds of segments, where they exist, to be the minority and generally taking a backseat to game announcements
......... I also want to repeat here that I'm not saying this because I believe we're going to see a new 3D Zelda, 3D Mario, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion, Mario Maker and Smash Bros all there all at once on day 1. I honestly expect maybe 3-4 first party titles in this thing. Mario Kart, possibly 3D Mario since its been a while and something to throw at mouse mode. Maybe there's a remake or something else in there, who knows. But whatever we get, I'm not expecting the floodgates to open. I'm generally expecting it to be less than we saw for Switch. Two titles at launch (core + casual) and then something to keep the releases flowing for a few months. I expect they'll outline this year's releases on Switch 2 for the most part in this presentation
But even that, especially when combined with some third party stuff, that's enough in the way of games to carry a regular Direct. So I don't see why they would bother padding the presentation with discussion about improvements to the performance of the eShop or menu themes or whatever else is on the Switch 2 OS wishlist these days
Also adding to the wall of text above. It seems there is going to be a Direct of some kind this week in addition to the Switch 2 presentation next week. Which to me suggests that there are some things they want to clear up and/or clear out before they dive into the Switch 2 presentation
Very possible that could mean something along the lines of NSO restructuring or new services/features. I could also see them using it as an opportunity to outline how backwards compatibility and cross-gen will work with titles like Metroid Prime 4. It may also be an opportunity to announce Switch content
....... or it could be nothing
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Coming off of that less-than-stellar OG Switch Direct, the next several days leading into the Switch 2 Presentation are going to crawl by at a snail's pace.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,537 games (as of December 22nd, 2025)
Switch 2 Physical Collection - 4 games (as of December 8th, 2025)
@Magician
lol yea… I wasn’t expecting much, but dang.
It just confused me more. A lot of us were thinking they wanted to use this as the Switch sendoff, but we still don’t have dates for the biggest games, so….?
Just really weird. Does this mean the Direct next week is so big that they needed to get some stuff out of the way like the digital renting thing? I guess that would be a positive interpretation lol
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