With the Nintendo Switch well on its way to its seventh birthday, some hints about its potential successor have begun to slip through the cracks.
We here at Gameflip are always excited about the prospect of new and exciting ways to enjoy video games, so let's take a look at some of the evidence of the Nintendo Switch successor that has come up recently.
The Activision Connection
Not even Tracer was fast enough to intercept those court documents. (Image Source: Sven Piper on Unsplash.com)
As part of the Xbox/Activision-Blizzard acquisition that just closed recently, Activision slipped up in some company emails that were presented to courts. Court documents that were available online revealed that Nintendo had actually briefed the Call of Duty publisher on a “Switch 2” or Nintendo console successor way back at the end of 2022.
And, with Activision committing to bring Call of Duty games to the Switch and future Nintendo platforms for the next 10 years, it only makes sense that those games would be ported to a more powerful hybrid console. Since, you know, there has never been a Call of Duty released on the Nintendo Switch in its entire lifecycle.
This would, for the first time in a very long time, put Nintendo platforms at parity with PlayStation, Xbox, and PC for the world-famous FPS franchise. You'll probably still want to go through the Battlenet launcher for the best experience, but taking Call of Duty on the go is definitely enticing.
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The Great Gamescom Cover-Up
None of these people knew that new Nintendo hardware was hiding somewhere in this building. (Image Source: Laura Heimann)
Some pretty big news came out of Gamescom 2023, but not all of it was about software.
Allegedly, Nintendo was demoing some new hardware for key partner studios behind closed doors. Eurogamer reported at the time that an enhanced version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was being shown with more detailed graphics and upscaling features, though there was never any solid evidence to go along with the report.
The general consensus surrounding that report was that Nintendo's next-gen console could possibly have some kind of backward compatibility with current Switch games, and that the new hardware would be able to present them at a higher resolution either through upscaling or raw horsepower.
If Nintendo intends to launch a new console to surpass the current Switch in the next 6-months to a year, showing it off at Gamescom definitely lines up with that timeline.
The End of Its Time
Perhaps the most damning evidence comes to us courtesy of an interview Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa did with Nikkei. Understandably, that interview was entirely in Japanese, but the conversation was translated thanks to VGC.
VGC's report of the interview states that Nintendo plans to support the current Nintendo Switch models until "at least" March 2025. There tends to be some overlap in terms of Nintendo console generations, so if the current Nintendo Switch will be supported until 2025, it would be fair to expect a Nintendo Switch 2 between now and the middle of 2024.
Could we be playing upscaled Super Mario Wonder on new Switch consoles by the second half of 2024? I mean, I don't have a time machine, but it seems like the new piece of hardware has a good chance of being here by then.
Patent Pandemonium
At the end of everything, the only one left standing will be...Mario! (Image Source: Claudio Luiz Castro on Unsplash.com)
Nintendo has also been on a bit of a patent spree for the past two years, submitting filings for a number of different features and form factors that might or might not be related to the Nintendo Switch 2/successor.
The latest filing shows a Nintendo 3DS-style foldable console that is allegedly dockless, meaning it won't be able to be hooked up to your living room TV. It would be handheld mode only, so you would have to make do with the LCD screen or OLED screen that is onboard the device (although it's not clear what screen technology the device will have just yet).
This potential handheld only variant could be called the "Nintendo Super Play" according to a not-terribly-trustworthy source: a Japanese Twitter account. However, the patent is definitely real, so only time will tell if Nintendo has such a departure from the original Switch planned for us.
Wrapping It All Up
As of right now, the Nintendo Switch ecosystem is pretty well understood.
The Nintendo Switch models consist of the standard Switch system that comes with a dock so you can play on a TV, a similar OLED screen model, and the more portable Nintendo Switch Lite that can't be docked. If a new machine with a new form factor is on the way next year, select developers and third party publishers likely have their hands on development kits already.
Ultimately though, even with all of the information from multiple sources about the next console, what it would be or when it would come out unfortunately remains unclear. It's not uncommon for game developers to leak information on new consoles, but we shouldn't hold our breath.
For now, you can rest assured that - whatever Nintendo puts out next - you're going to need a Nintendo account. That seems like it will be the bridge between the current and next generation of Switch, and probably whatever they do in the future. All current Switch models also have a cartridge slot for physical games, but that might not be true of future iterations. Future systems in Nintendo's lineup could do away with physical games entirely.
That's why it's a good idea to take advantage of the digital game deals that happen on the Nintendo eShop all the time!
