Nintendo has remained completely quiet as to all details about the successor console to the Nintendo Switch. Despite that, information has been trickling out, in the form of reported leaks and mock ups from those who claim to have seen the prototype Switch 2 units. Dbrand provided 3D scans of the hardware they claim to be making decals for, implying that a release of the system is somewhat soon. To add fuel to the fire, accessory maker Genki took to CES 2025, showcasing what they say are official accessories for what might be simply named the Nintendo Switch 2. Genki also brought a mock up Switch 2 that aims to show off their accessories on what they claim is modeled on the real deal.

Their mock up displays what seem to be new Joy-Cons that attach magnetically and snap into the tablet. It's stated that the new Joy-Cons also have an optical sensor. When held side-by-side with the Switch, the newer system is slightly larger, and sports a stronger u-shaped stand on the back. Just like its predecessor, it'll also feature a dock.

Furthermore, a Redditor named NextHandheld began teasing details, sharing images of what are said to be the Switch 2 dock and the insides of a Switch 2 Joy-Con rail, with certification logos present. The rumored dock will be very similar to the first, offering two USB-A, ethernet, USB-C, and HDMI. While it's a pre-production unit, the hardware simply has a Switch logo and a 2 next to it, implying that it might genuinely be named the Switch 2 when it does release. According to the leaker, a January reveal and March/April release are likely. What do you believe?

NextHandheld leaker comments
Genki NS2 accessories
Switch 2 mock up system

 

[tommasi]

Looks like switch XL to me more than switch 2

 

[The Real Jdbye]

We've known exactly how powerful the switch 2 was going to be for a long time now, but it's nice to get more verification. The formfactor is nice, and the mouse/ball is pretty nifty. Wonder if they'll have a mario paint as a release game.

They didn't really hide the nvidia cpu/gpu they were using. The "only" question was ram, storage, screen, io/what plugs it had, and the joycon situation. Also how much they're going to down-clock it.

The rumour is 12GB of ram, but I don't know if that means 12GB with 2GB reserved for OS, or 12GB shared ram with some additional ram for OS purposes. Fingers crossed it's the second one.

I suppose given the current folks in charge, this "playing it safe" path probably should have been the most expected path. I expect they'll have cut corners on the first iteration, and will release an oled version after it becomes profitable to do so.

OH looks like the on-board storage is UFS 3.1. Which is awesome. It'll be the best way to play switch games. far quicker load times. "Sequential read and write speeds for UFS 3.1 max out at 2,100MB/s and 1,200MB/s respectively. While these numbers may seem less impressive compared to NVMe, UFS 3.1 still outperforms traditional SATA SSDs by a significant margin. Additionally, UFS 3.1 excels in random read and write operations, making it a suitable choice for applications that involve frequent file transfers and multitasking."

I wonder how they are going to deal with the speed disparity between the MicroSD card and built in UFS storage. Obviously 256 GB (the rumored capacity) is not enough for a game console, so we will need to have expandable storage. The rumored hardware decompression would make this speed disparity significant as we could have near zero load times over UFS.
UFS card exists, but not in larger capacities, and they seem to be difficult to get ahold of. Amazon doesn't even have them. This seems to be an already dead standard that never went mainstream so it's highly doubtful the Switch 2 would use it.
NVMe SSDs might be the ideal option for expandable storage, if they can squeeze it in.

 

[osaka35]

Looks li

I wonder how they are going to deal with the speed disparity between the MicroSD card and built in UFS storage. Obviously 256 GB (the rumored capacity) is not enough for a game console, so we will need to have expandable storage. The rumored hardware decompression would make this speed disparity significant as we could have near zero load times over UFS.
UFS card exists, but not in larger capacities, and they seem to be difficult to get ahold of. Amazon doesn't even have them. This seems to be an already dead standard that never went mainstream so it's highly doubtful the Switch 2 would use it.
NVMe SSDs might be the ideal option for expandable storage, if they can squeeze it in.

For the cartridges, i am curious to see what tech they'll use. 3rd parties might have to actually optimize their games a little bit, and i'm fine with that. We have come a long way in the SD space, and read-speeds are all that matter for cartridges, so I'm not worried.

As far as the external goes...SD Express cards use the PCIe/NVMe interface, so it's possible they have support for this standard. Minimum requirements might be quite a bit higher for external. Maybe they'll sell their own branded, very expensive cards. The price would come down eventually, as NVMe have come down quite a bit.

 

[retrospect]

The Switch 2's carts might be different, thus adding the dual capability of the old Switch carts

Oh. I guess we’ll find out later this year

Post automatically merged: Jan 9, 2025

Because what the fuck else explains it when otherwise superior products get outsold by Nintendo hardware? You think that they didn't have "good enough games" or some shit when the PSP library is among the best of any handheld console, Ninty or not?

What were the top exclusive games for PSP?

 

[Xzi]

as a steam deck owner I'll have to disagree that it is more user friendly than a switch

That depends on how you define "user friendly." What I wouldn't call user friendly is having zero functionality, flexibility or customization options. The offline experience of Switch is an insult to its users' intelligence, and the online experience feels like loading web pages from the 90s. Even Apple products are a significant step up over that, and a whole lot of kids are given iPads well before they're given game consoles.

Ninty didn't design Horizon for the benefit of users, they designed it to be as bland as useless as possible out of fear of exploits. And then Switch got exploited faster than any other Nintendo console anyway.

 

[BlusterBong]

Ninty didn't design Horizon for the benefit of users, they designed it to be as bland as useless as possible out of fear of exploits. And then Switch got exploited faster than any other Nintendo console anyway.

Meanwhile the reason it did get exploited at all was entirely because of a hardware defect, nobody right now has found a way to exploit Horizon directly, even with the major patches being slowed to a crawl. The switch homebrew scene lucked out when the Switch was new, it's really that simple.

That depends on how you define "user friendly." What I wouldn't call user friendly is having zero functionality, flexibility or customization options.

Most people would define "user friendly" as something that is easy to use or understand, just like every console within thier respective generation, Even in the PS5/Xbox Series X, the main part of thier UI/OS that you'll see most often is thier dashboards, which is just "pick the game you want to play and go." with some more detailed statistics if needed. Horizion does that with it's main dashboard , just like every console that has ever had a dashboard or a dedicated menu when you're not in a game. It's not like something like themes where it could be discarded or put on the backburner like what Sony did with the PS5 and what Microsoft did with the Xbox One/Series X, because the point of a console has been to play games first and foremost, even when more multimedia features were crowbared into the 7th and 8th gen, a lot of it like the photo viewer and music player of the PS3 were discarded completely by the time the 9th gen consoles hit the scene

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Looks li

For the cartridges, i am curious to see what tech they'll use. 3rd parties might have to actually optimize their games a little bit, and i'm fine with that. We have come a long way in the SD space, and read-speeds are all that matter for cartridges, so I'm not worried.

As far as the external goes...SD Express cards use the PCIe/NVMe interface, so it's possible they have support for this standard. Minimum requirements might be quite a bit higher for external. Maybe they'll sell their own branded, very expensive cards. The price would come down eventually, as NVMe have come down quite a bit.

I'm expecting cartridges to also use UFS, as the Switch carts used flash memory and UFS is just an improved version of that.
SD Express seems to be another dying standard that never went anywhere, it's much less common than CF Express and even that is only used in professional applications and has a price tag to match. There's also the issue that because they're SD compatible and normal SD cards are so much easier to come by, and most people would probably not know the difference, they would end up buying regular MicroSD cards and complain that the load speeds are much slower than the internal storage or cartridges.
Also, I couldn't find a MicroSD Express card larger than 256 GB. So that's not great for expandability. NVMe SSDs at least go up to 1 TB in the smaller form factor. Though they aren't as easy for the user to upgrade, so if Nintendo does go with that they will probably sell different versions with different sizes of NVMe SSD preinstalled and not intend for the end user to actually upgrade it themselves.

Post automatically merged: Jan 9, 2025

Meanwhile the reason it did get exploited at all was entirely because of a hardware defect, nobody right now has found a way to exploit Horizon directly, even with the major patches being slowed to a crawl. The switch homebrew scene lucked out when the Switch was new, it's really that simple.


Most people would define "user friendly" as something that is easy to use or understand, just like every console within thier respective generation, Even in the PS5/Xbox Series X, the main part of thier UI/OS that you'll see most often is thier dashboards, which is just "pick the game you want to play and go." with some more detailed statistics if needed. Horizion does that with it's main dashboard , just like every console that has ever had a dashboard or a dedicated menu when you're not in a game. It's not like something like themes where it could be discarded or put on the backburner like what Sony did with the PS5 and what Microsoft did with the Xbox One/Series X, because the point of a console has been to play games first and foremost, even when more multimedia features were crowbared into the 7th and 8th gen, a lot of it like the photo viewer and music player of the PS3 were discarded completely by the time the 9th gen consoles hit the scene

Firmware defect, not hardware.
And you're forgetting about the browser exploit. Up to 4.1.0 we had a full exploit chain that gave the same access as RCM.

There is a decent possibility that some time after the Switch EoL (when exploits will no longer be patched) we will see more software exploits. As the same happened with the 3DS and even the Wii U. A console reaching EoL seems to cause increased interest in researching the latest firmware version (makes sense I guess as they know it will be the final version so their hard work won't be invalidated by an update and they have all the time they could need to explore every aspect of the code)
Not everyone researching exploits is of the mind to release their findings to the public until it gets patched, so it's even possible that people have found exploits but have kept them a secret until they are either patched or the Switch reaches EoL so they can be compatible with a wider range of software versions.

 

[Xzi]

nobody right now has found a way to exploit Horizon directly

Because there's been no reason or necessity to do so. Atmosphere provides a much-improved version of the same OS. It being made by just one or two talented individuals is yet another demonstration of how Ninty spends way too fucking much money on their legal department and way too little on software engineers.

Most people would define "user friendly" as something that is easy to use or understand

That's a poor excuse, there's still a big difference between "simple" and "braindead." Switch is undeniably a giant leap backward even from previous Nintendo consoles, let alone when compared to its modern competitors. Nobody's demanding access to a command prompt or Linux console, since clearly even static images and a bit of background music are too much for Ninty to handle. People made "Valve Time" a meme, but eight years of firmware updates with not a single one of them including front-end improvements is actually sadistic.

 

[BlusterBong]

That's a poor excuse, there's still a big difference between "simple" and "braindead." Switch is undeniably a giant leap backward even from previous Nintendo consoles, let alone when compared to its modern competitors. Nobody's demanding access to a command prompt or Linux console, since clearly even static images and a bit of background music are too much for Ninty to handle. People made "Valve Time" a meme, but eight years of firmware updates with not a single one of them including front-end improvements is actually sadistic.

Let's see what the OFFICIAL Webster's Dictionary website defines what User-Friendly means.



Sounds pretty clear cut to me, because how the fuck is a single row of recent games and a total list and a quick settings like the 8th and 9th gen consoles have button a giant leap backwards from the Wii U's grid that required an update to get folders just like the switch did while half of the entire menu consisted of something that died after a few years, or the anemic 3DS home menu that was only manageable because it was on the touch screen?, is it the themes that only existed on the 3DS and no other Nintnedo console barring the Switch's white and black colors while most of them were only made to promote a specific game anyways? Is it the nostalgia of staring at the screen or listening to the system music on youtube? is this an excuse for you to nitpick an aspect that means literally nothing compared to the GAMES and the actual console itself?

 

[Xzi]

"Agreeable, appealing" apply to all competing UX, not Switch's. Moreover, there's nothing to learn or understand about Horizon, because there's nothing below the surface level. If Nintendo are too lazy/incompetent to put any effort in, then they might as well just return to "insert cartridge, play game" and skip the OS altogether. With only 32GB of internal storage, it's a terrible platform to buy digital games for anyway.

is this an excuse for you to nitpick an aspect that means literally nothing compared to the GAMES and the actual console itself?

Don't even get me started on their release schedule for games, that's a whole other can of worms since they never made good on their promise to become more productive after combining their home console and handheld divisions. The last couple years have been so barren that they even ended up ceding the platformer crown to Sony.

 

[64bitmodels]

Because there's been no reason or necessity to do so.

Uh how about the fact that the only way to softmod a console is to exploit the OS that it runs on?

Hardmodding increases the floor of entry drastically because most people have an SD card/Flash Drive in their house. whereas not as many people have solder equipment available.

The vast majority of switches sold can't be paperclipped to run CFW. And nobody's buying an old ass Switch from 2017 with an 8 year old battery, 6.2 in LCD screen at 400+ bucks on ebay to make that happen

the 3DS with half the user base managed to get a working softmod so easy that it spawned a meme. The Switch not being able to do that suggests that Horizon is secure as fuck.

Post automatically merged: Jan 9, 2025

because how the fuck is a single row of recent games and a total list and a quick settings like the 8th and 9th gen consoles have button a giant leap backwards from the Wii U's grid that required an update to get folders just like the switch did while half of the entire menu consisted of something that died after a few years, or the anemic 3DS home menu that was only manageable because it was on the touch screen?, is it the themes that only existed on the 3DS and no other Nintnedo console barring the Switch's white and black colors while most of them were only made to promote a specific game anyways? Is it the nostalgia of staring at the screen or listening to the system music on youtube? is this an excuse for you to nitpick an aspect that means literally nothing compared to the GAMES and the actual console itself?

This is cool and all but both the 3DS and Wii U were still quite user friendly while having a bit more room for expression and depth in their home menu. and the 3DS's home menu wasn't anemic, it was more fully functional than the Switch-between the 3D renders for the games and the themes as well as the actual use of 3D in said menu, it was more indepth. and the same can be said for the Wii U's menu and it's very well done Miiverse integration.

A video game console menu can be both user friendly and still have charm.. It really does not have to be one or the other. I have hope that Nintendo will design a more robust menu with their newer system as well as some unique features to go with it.
I know games sell consoles but that doesn't mean that console menus should be boring. That's one of the things that people will have nostalgia for when the device is revisited in 20 years.

sidenote: i have to break this double posting habit

 

[Xzi]

Uh how about the fact that the only way to softmod a console is to exploit the OS that it runs on?

We're several years past the need to mod a console at all, you can just play Switch games on PC or other handhelds at both higher frame rates and resolutions. It's unfortunate that progress on emulators has been halted, but ultimately that will only amount to a temporary setback. There will undoubtedly be far more demand for Switch 2 software exploits until that's cracked open, assuming there are no hardware exploits to be found.

Unless Nintendo have added a whole lot of new features to it for Switch 2 (doubtful), the best thing about Horizon will remain the ability to bypass it altogether. A direct compatibility/translation layer to run Ninty's DLSS on other Nvidia hardware would be great.

 

[BlusterBong]

We're several years past the need to mod a console at all, you can just play Switch games on PC or other handhelds at both higher frame rates and resolutions. It's unfortunate that progress on emulators has been halted, but ultimately that will only amount to a temporary setback. There will undoubtedly be far more demand for Switch 2 software exploits until that's cracked open, assuming there are no hardware exploits to be found.

do you not see what fourm you are on? hacking and modding consoles have been the lifeblood of GBATemp, what do you think the many tutorials on hacking and doing specific things with modded/hacked consoles here are for?, meme fodder? nobody comes to tutorials or makes a Q&A thread asking how they can crank thier bing bing wahoo emulator to 9001% resolution and framerate on thier PC when they look for tutorials on how to mod thier Switch or DS or Wii or what have you. Nobody gives a shit if your Super-Powered PC can play TotK at 4K60 and how it's totally superior to the console owning plebs, a lot of people here want to do some really crazy shit with devices that wern't made to do said crazy shit, and doing shit lke making the switch run Android or install Linux to emulate itself . I myself am looking forward to an actual attempt for an softmod exploit so I can turn my own switch into a swiss army knife with the Tripleboot setups i've been looking into.

and as for the speed of emulation, it's only the switch emulation scene that's been affected and all that's been going on is countless forks of Yuzu/Ryujinx that don't really amount to much in the long run becuase all that's been being added is little things and small fixes while nobody wants to make a new codebase that'll be less susecptable to Nintendo's legal action (such as forced decrypted ROMs only unless you have the actual hardware like what's going on with the new 3DS emulator after the two big players of Citra forks joined forces) and completely independant from Yuzu/Ryujinx, meanwhile the rest of the emulation scene has been going at buisness as usual with PCSX2 focusing more on performance now that nearly everything is playable and the RPCS3 pushing PS3 emulation to it's limit.

 

[Xzi]

do you not see what fourm you are on? hacking and modding consoles have been the lifeblood of GBATemp

No shit, we break the walls of their walled gardens because what Nintendo provides its users in terms of long-term official support is always severely lacking. I'm not saying there's zero demand for a software exploit, but I don't think there's quite enough people actively searching for one to actually get results, either. It's a niche hobby/interest to begin with, and the fact that there are alternatives available reduces the number of motivated individuals.

Nobody gives a shit if your Super-Powered PC can play TotK at 4K60 and how it's totally superior to the console owning plebs

Lol just about any smartphone made in the last five years can emulate Switch at full speed, this isn't about elitism.

a lot of people here want to do some really crazy shit with devices that wern't made to do said crazy shit, and doing shit lke making the switch run Android or install Linux to emulate itself.

Then why get offended or defensive when I talk about my desire to install a better (Linux-based) OS than Horizon on Switch 2?

 

[BlusterBong]

No shit, we break the walls of their walled gardens because what Nintendo provides its users in terms of long-term official support is always severely lacking. I'm not saying there's zero demand for a software exploit, but I don't think there's quite enough people actively searching for one to actually get results, either.

Yes, you were.

We're several years past the need to mod a console at all, you can just play Switch games on PC or other handhelds at both higher frame rates and resolutions.

how can this not be seen as "there's no demand for software exploits becuase emulators exist!"? and speaking of which....

Lol just about any smartphone made in the last five years can emulate Switch at full speed, this isn't about elitism.

Then stop trying to tout things being able to emulate the Switch or how it can run shit better than the Switch while acting like it's a good thing, especially when the switch can also emulate itself, in full speed at as high as 4K in some scenarios as I previously linked to. Once again, I need to remind you that nobody fucking cares if your Galaxy A from 2017 can emulate the Switch and how it's totally better than running the Switch natively, because we're on a fourm that is not about what can emulate something in a highest quality. And even then, I could count several more things that would be worth the processing power that would be put into emulating the switch on a phone, such as jailbreaking it and doing literally anything else execpt emulating old games on it.

Then why get offended or defensive when I talk about my desire to install a better (Linux-based) OS than Horizon on Switch 2?

I'm not trying to "get Offended or defensive" in regards to that, but I need to ask where?, where did you say that besides that offhand mention a page ago after I pointed out that you had to turn to a non-official means to get SteamOS 3 to get it on anything other than a Deck or whatever handheld PC and you went "Well it's not walled off completely, you just gotta use the recovery iso!" (Which is still walling things off becasue the people who bought the deck and are just using the default configurations won't do this to bring SOS3 to thier PC or other device), in response to how I was tryng to explain why SOS3 Is and should be so easy to be brought over to anything else becuase it's Linux and just as able to fall into the same pitfals as any other disribution, what did you expect with something as portable as Linux?

 

[Xzi]

how can this not be seen as "there's no demand for software exploits becuase emulators exist!"?

Because it can just as easily be interpreted as, "there's very little demand for software exploits when both emulators and hardware exploits exist." The people who are deeply invested in this stuff will open up their Switch and solder a modchip on, or they will buy an unpatched Switch at a mark-up. Anyone with a moderate amount of tech knowledge who is only interested in Switch for the games, however, knows they don't need to spend money on hardware they don't have to play them. Both these groups of people existing means fewer people committed to finding software exploits.

Then stop trying to tout things being able to emulate the Switch or how it can run shit better than the Switch while acting like it's a good thing

Of course that's a good thing, it's just another means of breaking down that walled garden. No reason to drink the Kool-Aid and tow the Nintendo line that people need to be paying a premium for inferior products and presentation. Free the hardware from the shackles of its terrible OS, or free the games from the shackles of decade-old hardware, either way it's a worthwhile improvement.

where did you say that besides that offhand mention a page ago after I pointed out that you had to turn to a non-official means to get SteamOS 3 to get it on anything other than a Deck or whatever handheld PC

You're being disingenous, Valve literally just announced SteamOS for the Legion Go S, and the plan is obviously to expand support to as many devices as possible in the future. Odds are that by the time Switch 2 is exploited, it'll fully support almost any device with buttons/keys, and you'll still be able to mod and tinker with any part of it to your heart's content. A gaming company doing something consumer-friendly like that shouldn't get on your nerves, perhaps you've grown too accustomed to being mistreated.

 

[Cranesbill]

Nintendo just confirmed they're all fake

Everyone's stupid but me

https://bsky.app/profile/culturecrave.co/post/3lfezgfjg6k2h

 

[SSmiles]

Update to the leaks, the switch 2 may support SD Express as opposed to standard SD. Additionally ports to the switch include red dead redemption 2, elden ring and the halo series are coming to the switch 2. The "release" game for Nintendo will be Mario kart 9.
Additionally, Dbrand's video showed some optical sensor on the magnetic rail, this may replace the IR sensor on the original switch. A supposed "scent emitter" has been a recent claim. . . however that may be a stretch. this leak came from a leaked promotional video for the switch 2 however no evidence supports it's credibility, especially regarding that no leaks come from Nintendo themselves but from 3rd parties
The operating system will stay the same (Horizon OS) but will be updated for switch 2 for it's greater capabilities. In the future that may mean easier implication of Atmosphere OS, a custom firmware.

 

[UltraHurricane]

no they were too busy and paranoid getting rid of all the emulators first because 100% they are going to all work right out of the gate with it!

i mean... they can do both? :/