The Nintendo Switch 2 is finally official and will be coming later this year. That's a full eight years since the launch of the original console and, well, things have changed a little bit since then. Nintendo may have popularized gaming handhelds at a time when smartphones were predicted to smash them into obscurity — but it isn't the only name in town anymore.
This week's Switch 2 announcement comes hot on the heels of CES 2025 which saw a flood of powerful new gaming handhelds revealed. Acer, MSI and Lenovo are all building on the foundations of the Steam Deck's popularity to push handheld PC gaming further.
Drawbacks to handheld PCs are well-known; high prices, incompatibility and a need to tinker with settings to name just a few. And that's before we get into the debate over Windows vs Linux vs SteamOS.
But even if you move away from fully fledged handheld PCs, Nintendo will be competing with streaming-based solutions like the PlayStation Portal and Logitech G Cloud as well as Android-based gaming devices like the Ayn Odin series or the Razer Edge 5G that function basically as smartphones with controllers attached.
What I'm trying to say here is the ground has shifted since 2017 and, instead of competing against a single opponent in the iPhone, Nintendo is competing against an entire team of would-be rivals.
But here's the thing: Nintendo doesn't compete. And the secret sauce of 2017 will, I think, be just as effective the second time around.
The clue's in the name
Nintendo's decision to make its console switch seamlessly between handheld and TV modes just by dropping it into a USB-C dock was a masterstroke. Of course, the technology alone wouldn't have worked if it wasn't backed up by Nintendo's powerful IP, but it was such a revolutionary idea at the time that seems so natural all these years later.
Sure, you can dock a Steam Deck to a TV or you can use remote play from an Xbox or PlayStation to cast to a second screen, but it's never as frictionless as Nintendo's solution. A lot of casual gamers — myself among them — don't have the time or the inclination to mess with settings or Bluetooth pairing issues when we want to move from the commute home to a quick game of FIFA on the TV before bed.
We want simple, we want fast and we want fun. Nintendo offers that solution in an intuitive, affordable way.
Many commentators may argue that the Switch 2 is a classic case of evolution over revolution. I think that's exactly what Nintendo needs to give the Switch 2 the best chance of success after the flop that was the WiiU. It's true that we need to wait to hear about the actual internal components of the console to draw some realistic conclusions about how it'll perform — but I don't think you want to bet against Nintendo. Especially since the backwards compatibility is confirmed.
Yes, we'll likely get a re-tread of Mario Kart, Zelda, Animal Crossing and the rest to keep the Nintendo IP machine printing out that Mario money. But my real hope for the Switch 2 is that we see some incredible new franchises that force casual FIFA players like me to book a day off work, put our phones on Do Not Disturb and sink some real time into exploring what Nintendo has to offer.
