Nintendo Has Reportedly Started Showing the “Switch 2” to Developers

Now that Valve’s Steam Deck and new Windows 11-based gaming handhelds are making PC games playable on a Nintendo Switch-like form factor, we may well see the successor to Nintendo’s portable console being released sometime in 2024. According to a new report from Eurogamer, the Japanese company recently showed the “Nintendo Switch 2” to third-party developers at the Gamescom conference last month.

“Developer presentations for Switch 2 took place behind closed doors, Eurogamer understands, with partners shown tech demos of how well the system is designed to run. One Switch 2 demo is a souped-up version of Switch launch title Zelda: Breath of the Wild, designed to hit the Switch 2’s beefier target specs,” Eurogamer reported, adding that this tech demo doesn’t necessarily mean that a “next-gen” version of the blockbuster Switch game is in the pipeline.

The Nintendo Switch, which was released in March 2017, is clearly starting to show its age. Despite some minor hardware revisions over the years, Nintendo doesn’t do mid-gen refreshes like Microsoft and Sony did in the previous console generation.

However, the Switch’s aging hardware doesn’t seem to hurt sales. It also doesn’t prevent Nintendo from delivering ambitious open-world games like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is a clear game-of-the-year contender alongside Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3. Exclusive games like Tears of the Kingdom continue to be real system sellers for Nintendo, and Switch sales crossed 129.53 million units worldwide as of June 30, 2023.

There are no hardware details about the successor to the Nintendo Switch yet, but the company will likely continue to capitalize on this portable console format. The Nintendo Switch uses an ARM-based Nvidia Tegra X1 chip, and it will be interesting to see what kind of silicon Nintendo’s next-gen console will be using.

If Microsoft announced its Xbox Series X console almost of full year before its release at the Game Awards 2019 ceremony, Nintendo has really no interest in doing something similar. With the Switch still selling really well in 2023, the Japanese company likely won’t do anything that could cannibalize Switch sales in the near future.