Every now and then a new rumour sprouts up about the Switch 2, or Switch Pro, or (given the naming conventions of Pokemon Snap) the New Nintendo Switch. Categorically, we do not need one. Nobody, on any side of this arrangement, needs one. It’s baffling that we continue to crave a product we simply do not need, and highlights the strangely pro-corporate culture gaming continues to exist in.
First off, let’s look at what the Switch 2 would improve. Almost every single person who mentions the Switch 2 primarily talks about graphical performance, causing me to sigh so hard my lungs momentarily turn inside out. Things that might actually be useful, like eliminating Joy-Con drift or battery life, come secondary. The main thing is that it has to look better than ever, because we’ve been trained to believe that’s the highest mark of quality. As long as your generic triple-A open world slop has good graphics, someone somewhere will defend it as a masterpiece.
But Nintendo doesn’t even make photorealistic games. It has always been understood that the Switch was not going to beat Microsoft or Sony at their own game, and while prestige games have gotten more similar and have been sapped of their visual character, Nintendo games burst with life. Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Pokemon Let’s Go, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Fire Emblem Engage, and Metroid Dread all have their own art style that works perfectly on the Switch’s ‘limitations’. And I put ‘limitations’ in quotes because, while the Switch is technically limited, I don’t think any of us even want a realistic Mario game.
Would I like circles and spheres on the Switch to be rounded off and not a succession of straight lines arranged as if to look like a circle? Sure. If a console that did that fell into my hands, would I play it more than my current Switch? Absolutely. Do I want to pay £250 and see Nintendo overhaul one of the most successful ecosystems it has ever had just so Mario’s nipples look better? Not a chance in hell, and you’re a sucker if you do.
‘B-b-b-but what about third party games?!’, yeah, what about them? You’re spending your free time reading a mid-sized gaming outlet, 95 percent of you have a gaming PC or Steam Deck or PlayStation or Xbox, if not several. Sure, a Switch 2 could run The Witcher 3 better, but I don’t need it to, and neither do you. The fact you occasionally want to play The Witcher on the bus with the best possible graphics is not a good reason to want everyone to have to shell out another £250 for a games console either.
A Switch Pro, on top of the OLED? Sure, whatever. If people want the best version of the Switch possible so that Pokemon Scarlet & Violet can be broken on a crisper screen, be my guest. Anything that keeps the Switch as the current Nintendo console is fine with me. But a Switch 2 is an upgrade from PS4 to PS5, and suggests an incoming phase out in the name of slightly better graphics for a company that makes games that look like cartoons.
We’ve been here before. The Wii did its own thing and was widely popular, then it crashed and burned with the sequel, the Wii U. You’re risking the Switch turning into the Switch U, and paying hundreds in cash into the bargain, just so a game you already own on a top of the range console with a 4K TV looks a little better when you play it on the plane once a year?
Too much of our modern identity is defined by ownership and consumerism. People get brand logos tattooed on their bodies, so it should be no surprise that instead of wanting the best selling console in the world to continue pushing creating games that offer new experiences, we want to buy another version, one that can play the exact same games we already have on our other machines that are part of our identity. We don’t need a Switch 2. We won’t for a long time.