Nintendo announces plans to discontinue Nintendo Switch line in Europe next year, outlines upcoming hardware changes for other devices

DeadSkullzJr · Wednesday at 4:24 PM

emmauss said:
Umm, but the BC feature in the switch 2 is, CPU code is being run as is, with service calls being routed through the nncompat layer into compatible switch 2 HOS services. nncompat may add some overhead for service calls, but rarely do games call HOS apis. The one called every frame is the gpus services, i.e. surface flinger and related, and those have their own special services. For the shaders, pure switch 1 games uses a shader translator that, to my experience so far, have 0 performance issues. Games even run much faster and render more frames. There are still games that have compatibility issues, but they barely hit 100.

For upscaling, it's not up to nintendo to fix resolution issues in all games. Devs are supposed to handle that. The HOS surface flinger gives apps a render target to draw to, which is similar to a texture and the game engine determines the output resolution. From then onward, the os just does some simple scaling, most likely bilinear, to stretch to the 1080 or 4k display. What more do you expect? That they have system level FSR or DLSS? FSR1 is the only spacial upscaling technique here, and it's outdated. Newer FSR and all DLSS require engine level implementation.

You mentioned flaws in the system, which there are, yes. but you never listed nor show which specific flaws.

You already listed one of the problems:

- Lack of 100% game compatibility.

Which by extension means that it's also not 100% accurate. Graphics rendering tends to be the first thing negatively impacted by these layers. A good example of these issues, Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (not to be confused with the Bedrock version). The user interface essentially breaks down. There's also crashes that occur randomly. These issues don't seem to always spring up immediately, but they definitely don't occur on the Nintendo Switch. There were a few other games that had crashing issues and such on the Nintendo Switch 2, but I think those have already been addressed at some point (Doom (2016) for example used to crash when auto saving kicked in, but it doesn't seem to do that anymore). The performance uplifts when running Nintendo Switch games on the Nintendo Switch 2 is technically another sign of inaccuracy, despite being a benefit in most people's eyes. If you recall how the New Nintendo 3DS operated, original Nintendo 3DS software were still limited to the 268 MHz clock speed of the processor, and 128 MB of the total memory, so the games by default didn't perform any better than the original system. Everything was hardware native, resulting in not only 100% accuracy down to performance, but the system was also 100% compatible with every piece of original Nintendo 3DS software. Since the Nintendo Switch 2 doesn't have any of the original hardware that the Nintendo Switch had, it's basically just running code at raw hardware capabilities. Even the upgrade packs tend to take advantage of that fact, and instead of addressing actual internal flaws with performance throughout the original code, most of the upgrade pack contents consist of graphical texture bumps, maybe increases to the rendering distance in some cases, and some extra content depending on the game (The Pokémon games for example still have dips, but most of those are masked by the raw hardware power). Metroid Prime 4 has the same exact small dips in Sol Valley (the desert area) between both the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, even with the upgrade pack. You probably won't notice it so much on the Nintendo Switch 2, because again, it's raw hardware masking the problems. If your only focus is purely the raw uplifts, fine, the Nintendo Switch 2 wins. If you want to bring in the details in between, then the Nintendo Switch 2 forever losses that fight.

NitroShell · Wednesday at 4:56 PM

Scarlet said:
View attachment 581252

Last month we got confirmation of a new model of Switch 2 to better comply with upcoming EU regulations. With the legislation set to come into effect in February of 2027, we've now had further news, revealing the company's plans to discontinue the original Switch line in Europe. You can read their full statement below.

The same support page that contains the above statement also sheds some light on the previously announced hardware revisions, revealing estimated release dates alongside any updates to the specification of each device. Most notable among these is the Switch 2 console itself, which has a tentative release window of Autumn, with the Joy Con 2 and Switch 2 Pro Controller following in Winter, and the Nintendo 64 and GameCube NSO controllers finally marked for early 2027. The majority of affected hardware does see some reduction in battery capacity, with the Switch 2 Pro Controller being hit the worst with a 16% hit. The Switch 2 console itself is only around 1% smaller though, so it's hard to complain there.

Source

It’s not really their fault. It’s the EU’s fault. Anything that doesn’t have a replaceable battery is banned, which is dumb but it’s definitely pro consumer.

Exnor · Wednesday at 6:54 PM

NitroShell said:
It’s not really their fault. It’s the EU’s fault. Anything that doesn’t have a replaceable battery is banned, which is dumb but it’s definitely pro consumer.

Dumb?

Dumb is accepting a non repairable devices! Dumb is to accept that you paid for something but you don't own it! That is Dumb !!

Bladexdsl · Wednesday at 8:14 PM

nintAPPLE: how can we force people into buying the overpriced switch 2? eureka we'll make some bs excuse about the battery can't be replaced to code than discontinue the switch 1 now our loyal little sheep MUST buy the switch 2! bwa hahahahahahah!

raxadian · Wednesday at 9:53 PM

Let's be honest here Nintendo will use whatever legit excuse possible to discontinue the Switch 1 to make the Switch 2 look better.

After all no Switch 1 sales means the Switch 2 stops losing to the Switch 1.

thekarter104 · Wednesday at 11:11 PM

raxadian said:
Let's be honest here Nintendo will use whatever legit excuse possible to discontinue the Switch 1 to make the Switch 2 look better.

After all no Switch 1 sales means the Switch 2 stops losing to the Switch 1.

It happened with every console generation going to be discontinued, also back in the day, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. It's just how it goes with each generation.

raxadian · Wednesday at 11:46 PM

thekarter104 said:
It happened with every console generation going to be discontinued, also back in the day, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. It's just how it goes with each generation.

Sony keep the PS2 alive for a long time beca it literally was their best selling DVD player ever.

ertaboy356b · 2026-07-09T09:41:00+0100

raxadian said:
Let's be honest here Nintendo will use whatever legit excuse possible to discontinue the Switch 1 to make the Switch 2 look better.

After all no Switch 1 sales means the Switch 2 stops losing to the Switch 1.

I mean why? Nintendo just entered the Indian market with the Switch 1 and not the Switch 2. I don't think this is the case.

ChibiMofo · 2026-07-09T09:46:33+0100

Bladexdsl said:
nintAPPLE: how can we force people into buying the overpriced switch 2? eureka we'll make some bs excuse about the battery can't be replaced to code than discontinue the switch 1 now our loyal little sheep MUST buy the switch 2! bwa hahahahahahah!

You are always such a ray of sunshine that is so badly needed in our winter of discontent. I searched through you post history. You have literally never said a positive thing about anything. You must be insufferable to live with.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 9:49 AM

raxadian said:
Let's be honest here Nintendo will use whatever legit excuse possible to discontinue the Switch 1 to make the Switch 2 look better.

After all no Switch 1 sales means the Switch 2 stops losing to the Switch 1.

What an absolute clown! First, the Switch 2 is selling faster than the Switch 1. It is not losing. Second, the Switch 1 is NOT being discontinued! They will stop selling it ONLY IN EUROPE! Did you need read this thread? Please be better informed before spewing nonsense like this. Nintendo is more than happy to sell Switch 1's to anyone that wants one and is STILL MANUFACTURING THEM!!!

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 9:59 AM

DeadSkullzJr said:
You already listed one of the problems:

- Lack of 100% game compatibility.

Which by extension means that it's also not 100% accurate. Graphics rendering tends to be the first thing negatively impacted by these layers. A good example of these issues, Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (not to be confused with the Bedrock version). The user interface essentially breaks down. There's also crashes that occur randomly. These issues don't seem to always spring up immediately, but they definitely don't occur on the Nintendo Switch. There were a few other games that had crashing issues and such on the Nintendo Switch 2, but I think those have already been addressed at some point (Doom (2016) for example used to crash when auto saving kicked in, but it doesn't seem to do that anymore). The performance uplifts when running Nintendo Switch games on the Nintendo Switch 2 is technically another sign of inaccuracy, despite being a benefit in most people's eyes. If you recall how the New Nintendo 3DS operated, original Nintendo 3DS software were still limited to the 268 MHz clock speed of the processor, and 128 MB of the total memory, so the games by default didn't perform any better than the original system. Everything was hardware native, resulting in not only 100% accuracy down to performance, but the system was also 100% compatible with every piece of original Nintendo 3DS software. Since the Nintendo Switch 2 doesn't have any of the original hardware that the Nintendo Switch had, it's basically just running code at raw hardware capabilities. Even the upgrade packs tend to take advantage of that fact, and instead of addressing actual internal flaws with performance throughout the original code, most of the upgrade pack contents consist of graphical texture bumps, maybe increases to the rendering distance in some cases, and some extra content depending on the game (The Pokémon games for example still have dips, but most of those are masked by the raw hardware power). Metroid Prime 4 has the same exact small dips in Sol Valley (the desert area) between both the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, even with the upgrade pack. You probably won't notice it so much on the Nintendo Switch 2, because again, it's raw hardware masking the problems. If your only focus is purely the raw uplifts, fine, the Nintendo Switch 2 wins. If you want to bring in the details in between, then the Nintendo Switch 2 forever losses that fight.

Blah, blah, blah. Literally no one is complaining about backwards compatibility on Switch 2, which started off as great and recently became amazing with a new option in the settings menu. Twenty three million units have sold and virtually all of them have run Switch 1 games on them without issue. You, who do not even own one, are the only person on Earth whining about S2 backwards compatibility.

If there were S1 games with issues, the publishers would fix them because obviously they'd want them to run on S2. But there's no mad rush to do that because there aren't problems with backwards compat.

Oh, and those of us with modded New 3DS XL's with the faster processors have hacks that allow us to up the framerate on 3DS games, and they run flawlessly when doing so. Like the Wii U, the Wii and the GameCube all sharing the same family of GPUs and CPUs, 100% compatibility was assured with those. Nvidia made the SoC for the Switch 2. Guess who made the SoC for the Switch 1? You act like the Switch 2's SoC is a completely different piece of hardware from Switch 1 that has to translate everything like a PC does when running Wii games on Dolphin. Someone else above tried to give you a clue and you chose to ignore it. You don't know what you talking about and need to remove that "Developer" tag from your avatar since anyone who actually writes code would know better than to write what you above.

namename11 · 2026-07-09T10:49:07+0100

There was a 0% chance of them ever redesigning a nearly 10 year old console, so it makes sense. Hopefully they release the repairable Switch 2 globally.

Marc_LFD · 2026-07-09T12:10:05+0100

ertaboy356b said:
I mean why? Nintendo just entered the Indian market with the Switch 1 and not the Switch 2. I don't think this is the case.

Considering how massively successful the Switch 1 is/was those in India who wanted one likely already have one and probably just hacked it for "free" games.

PatrickD85 · 2026-07-09T17:55:02+0100

Well ... it simply makes sense really. NS2 is what they need to push.
NS1 is soooooo much available everywhere; in original, better battery, lite, and oled form. Dont even get me started on special editions of it.

Can't wait till we get the inevitable Switch 2 OLED. Buying that day one for sure.

Larsenv · 2026-07-09T19:30:57+0100

If I was Nintendo and faced the issue where regulation requires the devices having batteries replacable, since the Switch 2 is out I think it makes sense to discontinue it over there. If they made a version with batteries replaceable for older hardware, I'm sure that it would make it more difficult since consumers would have to track down units with the updated specifications.

Other regions haven't discontinued the Switch 1 yet. I'm a little bit disappointed that Nintendo doesn't have any announced Switch 1 games left in the pipeline, I guess Nintendo sees bigger revenue growth with making Switch 2 exclusive games to incentivize people to buy the new system. The console has sold well.

The 3DS sold for about a year and a half after they stopped making first party games so I hope that it sticks around for a little longer. In fact India is starting to sell the Switch 1 next year, not even the Switch 2

raxadian · 2026-07-09T21:55:48+0100

ertaboy356b said:
I mean why? Nintendo just entered the Indian market with the Switch 1 and not the Switch 2. I don't think this is the case.

Nintendo also tried to enter the Chinese market several times with old games.

First with the Nintendo 64 games and then with Wii games, both times with machines only for China and failed to make a profit both times. Although the Nvria Shield was also sold outside China.

Nincompoopdo · 2026-07-10T02:07:10+0100

In Japan Switch 1 is still outselling PS5.

DeadSkullzJr · 2026-07-10T06:09:02+0100

ChibiMofo said:
Blah, blah, blah. Literally no one is complaining about backwards compatibility on Switch 2, which started off as great and recently became amazing with a new option in the settings menu. Twenty three million units have sold and virtually all of them have run Switch 1 games on them without issue. You, who do not even own one, are the only person on Earth whining about S2 backwards compatibility.

Started off great? Not sure in what reality it "started off great," when backwards compatibility as a feature wasn't even accessible on launch day of the Nintendo Switch 2. A firmware update was required. When the software-level translation / compatibility layer was finally accessible, it was certainly not compatible with majority of Nintendo Switch games right out the gate. Nintendo STILL to this day rolls out fixes for games, as recent as June of this year by the way. If you waited to buy a Nintendo Switch 2 until AFTER many of the broken games were addressed, then maybe could it be "great." But to say it started off great is a lie when compatibility was relatively small at first. If your number is right, ~23,000,000 may have sold, and yes, many of them did in fact run at least one Nintendo Switch game without a problem. This argument doesn't hold up though, because that's deeply broad. Most people actually read Nintendo's news postings and the information about the compatibility layer on their website. Most of us already knew there would be incompatibilities. It wasn't like a giant army of people were running around with pitchforks and torches about it. Nintendo quite literally tells you to check compatibility of a game, they even created a dedicated section just so you could search for what is compatible (here is another section), because not all Nintendo Switch games were and still aren't 100% compatible. The number of compatible games has grown astronomically since the first accessible release of the feature, but it's definitely not 100% still. Ask the Developer Volume 16 quite literally mentions, at the time, over ~10,000 Nintendo Switch games existing, and how they ALL have to be tested one by one. This didn't account for Nintendo Switch games coming out after the fact. Reasons for various possible compatibility hurdles were mentioned (seriously read it). That's not exactly a task you pull an all nighter on to finish either by the way.

Few extra sources talking about games that are or were broken at one point. Users reporting errors and or discussing about certain games that may or may not have been addressed (I don't have a list of fixed games on hand).
https://www.polygon.com/nintendo-switch-2/605908/backward-compatability-list-games-issues-all/
https://www.pcguide.com/news/heres-...-arent-compatible-with-nintendo-switch-2-yet/
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/507478-nintendo-switch-2/81030903?page=1
https://forums.atariage.com/topic/382053-switch-2-compatibility-issues/

I can keep the links going, but I think the point is made already.

ChibiMofo said:
If there were S1 games with issues, the publishers would fix them because obviously they'd want them to run on S2. But there's no mad rush to do that because there aren't problems with backwards compat.

No idea what this is even about, because that's not how compatibility is being addressed lol. Nintendo is addressing the issues directly through updates that they push. If Nintendo threw compatibility concerns onto the game developers like that, then nearly every Nintendo Switch game would be far worse functionally, because the developers would be altering their own game code to cater towards a work in progress compatibility layer, that in all seriousness, is considered incomplete still, if not janky in some ways, compared to the original hardware. That makes no logical sense from a development standpoint, at that point, you are literally telling the developers to gimp optimizations and general code for the sake of something that's less accurate than the original hardware. If the software doesn't act up on the original hardware (the Nintendo Switch in this case), then that means it's an issue with the translation / compatibility later of the Nintendo Switch 2. Hence why Nintendo is progressively improving the compatibility layer themselves. Again, the development blog I linked to states a few possibilities of what might cause compatibility errors. It's a lot more complicated than you think.

ChibiMofo said:
Oh, and those of us with modded New 3DS XL's with the faster processors have hacks that allow us to up the framerate on 3DS games, and they run flawlessly when doing so. Like the Wii U, the Wii and the GameCube all sharing the same family of GPUs and CPUs, 100% compatibility was assured with those. Nvidia made the SoC for the Switch 2. Guess who made the SoC for the Switch 1? You act like the Switch 2's SoC is a completely different piece of hardware from Switch 1 that has to translate everything like a PC does when running Wii games on Dolphin. Someone else above tried to give you a clue and you chose to ignore it. You don't know what you talking about and need to remove that "Developer" tag from your avatar since anyone who actually writes code would know better than to write what you above.

Great, except you clearly have no idea the difference between hardware native backwards compatibility, versus software-level backwards compatibility from the example platforms you listed. Just because the SoC in a Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch 2 are made by the same company, doesn't mean a thing. The SoC of the Nintendo Switch 2 is quite literally NOT binary compatible with Nintnedo Switch software (sourced earlier point blank), hence the existence of the software-level translation / compatibility layer. It all happens in real time, on the fly. Think of it similar in concept to Wine on Linux. The Wii was 100% backwards compatible with GameCube titles, right out of the box, no updates needed, all hardware level. Same thing with Wii support for the Wii U, and by extension, GameCube support (minus the ability to read discs directly). Those systems had hardware level compatibility, which meant that every game released would work 100% just like they did on the original hardware. The Nintendo Switch 2 is NOT backwards compatible with Nintendo Switch games at the hardware level, at all, again the developer blog proves this.

I don't need to own a Nintendo Switch 2 to know how the technology works. Nintendo wasn't the first entity to come up with the concept. Such a concept has existed for over a decade and a half or so at this point. Everyone here has interacted with such a concept in some capacity already.

emmauss · 2026-07-10T08:23:47+0100

DeadSkullzJr said:
Few extra sources talking about games that are or were broken at one point. Users reporting errors and or discussing about certain games that may or may not have been addressed (I don't have a list of fixed games on hand).
https://www.polygon.com/nintendo-switch-2/605908/backward-compatability-list-games-issues-all/
https://www.pcguide.com/news/heres-...-arent-compatible-with-nintendo-switch-2-yet/
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/507478-nintendo-switch-2/81030903?page=1
https://forums.atariage.com/topic/382053-switch-2-compatibility-issues/

All the links you posted were updated at least 10 month ago. they are outdated. The updated list is https://www.nintendolife.com/guides...played#switch-1-games-with-issues-on-switch-2
Yes, they Switch 2 isn't 100% compatible with switch 1 games. You've hammered that fact very well. But you also seem to downplay how amazing the compat is given the restrictions they have to deal with.

DeadSkullzJr said:
This didn't account for Nintendo Switch games coming out after the fact. Reasons for various possible compatibility hurdles were mentioned (seriously read it).

All switch games released during the announcement, launch and after the launch of the switch 2 would be built with switch 2 compatible sdks and tested with the switch 2 in mind. I've not heard of any newer switch games that have issues on the switch 2.

DeadSkullzJr said:
The SoC of the Nintendo Switch 2 is quite literally NOT binary compatible with Nintnedo Switch software (sourced earlier point blank), hence the existence of the software-level translation / compatibility layer. It all happens in real time, on the fly.

This is partially incorrect. Game code is binary compatible. Switch 1 game code built targeting Aarch64 will run directly on the switch 2 cpu, no issues. OS calls are not part of game code. These are called using the SVC instruction and are intercepted by the compatibility layer. GPU shader code is not binary compatible. Maxwell shaders are translated to Ampere compatible shader code. Whether it's AOT on game launch or JIT, we don't know. The software-level translator is only for system calls. This is the same as Wine. Pure x86 code running on Windows will also run on Linux. Wine implements the Windows PEF loader, win32 calls like those provides in user32 and kernel32 libraries. and rendering support by implementing GDI support among others. Thats why Wine Is Not an Emulator.
We feel that you are one who sees the glass half empty and not half full.

KeeperCP1 · 2026-07-10T08:39:44+0100

well as a european i'm thinking about getting a switch 2 soon.. i found a used one for 400 dollars with games at 40 dollar each
is it worth it?

Marc_LFD · 2026-07-10T09:04:33+0100

KeeperCP1 said:
well as a european i'm thinking about getting a switch 2 soon.. i found a used one for 400 dollars with games at 40 dollar each
is it worth it?

The EU decided to change from Euros to Dollars? That's nice.

KeeperCP1 · 2026-07-10T09:34:17+0100

GODDAMMIT I'M TOO USED TO CALLING THEM DOLLARS WHEN SPEAKING IN ENGLISH

no but seriously though

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