It has barely been three days since the hour-long Nintendo Direct that blew the doors off the Nintendo Switch 2. But my word, does it feel like ten.

Indeed the moment has arrived: cats are finally out of bags; features and details have been divulged; long-held secrets have been spilled; we now know almost all of the important stuff about the Nintendo Switch 2. And just like when the Wii U made its full debut in mid-2012, or when “Switchmas” took the Internet by storm in very early 2017, my frantic compulsion to type up every errant thought on this site on minimal sleep and maximum coffee intake has peaked once again. I have watched the full Nintendo Switch 2 Direct through multiple times with and without reactions, read all the official documents and interviews, and taken in more analytical content than I care to admit.

But this post has not turned out to be as simple as a quick churn-out of thoughts. The original plan was to try and pump it out in a day, but then it was revealed that channels, sites and influencers had proper hands-on impressions ready to share on the same day that a bulky Nintendo Treehouse Live stream hit the internet, with another day of live streams to follow. On top of that, now there’s a wildfire of unexpectedly economics-flavoured chat going on throughout the internet since the cost of the new system came to light, with every 12 hours seemingly delivering a K-Drama-worthy twist.

So ultimately this article is a few days in the writing – during which Switch 2 preorders have already partially sold out here in Australia – but as a result it’s hopefully a bit more informed and carefully considered. It’s definitely a lot longer. After all, this kind of event just does not happen every day; it’s time to break down the tremendously exciting and extremely volatile promise of a brand-new Nintendo gaming generation.

The Brass Tacks

June 5th. That’s the date we will get our hands on the Nintendo Switch 2, for $699 Australian dollarydoos (called it). The new machine will arrive packing a 7.9 inch 1080p capacitive touch screen that as many feared will not be an OLED panel, but does support 120 frames per second output, High Dynamic Range at HDR10 spec and Variable Refresh Rate! All three of those bullet points are massive surprises roughly on the same shock level that the multi-touch screen, USB-C charging ports and region-free game support were back at the 2017 Switch reveal. Along with 3D audio, these are forward-looking hardware features from an often stubborn company, and the only thing more surprising than their inclusion is the fact Nintendo actually called attention to them (excepting the VRR thing) in the Switch 2 Direct.

120Hz VRR support is a massive deal in particular, as it makes 40FPS refresh rates look really smooth – and that is a much easier performance target than 60 for third-party developers to hit for their often-tricky Nintendo ports. And sure, HDR makes almost no difference without either an OLED display or some serious local dimming support, which is pretty rare on portable screens. But support is support, and that means docked play can finally take advantage of modern TV colour ranges. Speaking of which, the dock also has a freaking cooling fan and supports 4K output at up to 60FPS, but the cool kids know that the Switch OLED’s dock already did that; the Switch 1 just couldn’t take advantage. Some of the lighter Switch 2 games just might, however; oh hello, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.

Nintendo’s battery life estimates are somewhat nostalgic: 2 – 6.5 hrs depending on the game, apparently, which sounds pretty similar to what the official channels said about the Switch 1 in 2017. The major difference this time around is that we have many more points of comparison in the handheld space these days, and we have seen handheld PCs of a similar power level struggle to reach even a solid hour of play while running the most demanding games. Not even Nvidia’s fabled tech wizardry can account for that much of a discrepancy, so it is perhaps worth tempering expectations for now concerning how well the heaviest games will run in portable mode.

They will, at least, load faster, because standard Micro SD cards will no longer suffice on Switch 2 – only the “Micro SD Express” standard expands the included 256gb of storage. In related good news, early reports of file sizes for Nintendo-exclusive games are promising; it appears whatever forbidden compression magic Ninty developers used in the Switch 1 era hasn’t lost its edge. As long as they stick mostly to exclusives, it appears even digital-only players won’t have to expand the Switch 2’s memory that often.

The Switch 2’s controllers are called “Joy-Con 2” officially – more Sony energy in the marketing there – and they lack any form of IR camera, but do support a mouse-like control mode capable of combining with improved gyro and more detailed HD rumble (which thankfully is not called 4K rumble) to provide your standard dose of Nintendo novelty. Every tangible input is larger, the magnets look strong, and the chance of that middle connector on the edges snapping off appears much less concerning than it did in that CG render three months ago.

Steve Bowling from GVG even said after his hands-on session that the Switch 2 “felt like a Switch Lite”, so solid is the connection from controller to console; high praise indeed. Tech specialist YouTuber Marques Brownlee also made note that an accidental press of the release buttons doesn’t fully remove the new joy-cons because the magnets are too strong; you have to fully press them down. Ergonomics improvements also seem positive across the board, although I still doubt my AyaNeo 1S will be seriously challenged as the most comfortable handheld in my backpack.

There’s a new Pro Controller too, which has been tweaked for ergonomics (and, apparently, heft) and packs an honest-to-goodness headphone jack alongside two programmable back-buttons – so we’re basically talking about an official controller that does what third-party pads have done for years. I get distinct Xbox-One-to-Xbox-Series vibes from both the official and hands-on descriptions of this thing – i.e. lots of small design changes that aren’t immediately noticeable – and I wrote way too much about that at the end of 2020 so I can’t wait to get my own hands on it and compare. Sadly this will be another generation without analogue triggers, but I do still hold out hope the D-pad has had a tightened redesign. In any case, all Switch 1 joy-cons and pro controllers thankfully will work on Switch 2, likely with some game-by-game restrictions.

The Games

The real firecracker moments of the Switch 2 Direct naturally came via the games, most of which have somehow avoided leaking over the last several years. Chief among them is Mario Kart World, a dynamic interconnected open-world driving extravaganza with social features front-and-centre that looks like it’s going for some serious Forza Horizon or – dare I say it – Diddy Kong Racing vibes, only with a bit more emphasis on competitive racing. This thing is meaningfully different from the titanic Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in more than just sheer on-track player count or road width, and marks a clear step up in ambition that may just elevate the Kart franchise to the rich depth / quality tier its ridiculous sales success has always indicated it should occupy.

The Treehouse stream revealed that classic bespoke vehicles with fixed stats are back, there are at least 50 playable characters plus God knows how many outfits, the coin limit is now 20, a few new techniques need to be mastered, and sprint courses are going to be way more prevalent, but there are still all kinds of feature-based questions left to answer, and a dedicated Nintendo Direct will apparently air just two weeks from the time of writing to show us a proper deep dive. World really does look the business.

Almost certainly the greatest sizzle reel in the history of Nintendo Directs – and maybe even digital game presentations in general – filled out what was already a dizzying third-party launch lineup by that point in the Direct and left the Switch 2 Day 1 picture looking mighty rosy. In particular, the welcome appearances of both Puyo-Puyo Tetris 2S and a fresh sequel to Fast RMX (namely Fast Fusion, another 4K-enabled title), left me feeling warm and fuzzy as those two local multiplayer-focused games were a huge part of my first month as a Switch owner all the way back in 2017.

They contribute to a Switch 2 launch that already looks like a contender for the most packed in history: Street Fighter wouldn’t dare miss a modern Nintendo launch, and Cyberpunk 2077 provides the “Skyrim moment” that the Switch 1 famously used to showcase western support credibility, but there’s still a lot more besides. By my reckoning, June 5th will offer at least:

• Mario Kart World
• Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour
• Street Fighter 6
• Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition
• Fast Fusion
• Puyo-Puyo Tetris 2S
• Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster
• Split Fiction
• Deltarune Chapters 1-4
• Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
• Hitman: World of Assassination
• Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
• Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut
• Hogwarts Legacy
• Civilization VII
• Fortnite

That’s not even everything that was announced for launch, and it doesn’t include the upgraded versions of both open-air Switch Zelda games – which will be free on day one for NSO Expansion Pack subscribers – or the long-awaited debut of Nintendo Gamecube titles on the same service. On that latter note, the opening Cube salvo seems surgically picked for minimum overlap with other full game projects, which somewhat hilariously implies Nintendo believes the 2013 HD remaster of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (to date the only re-release of a 3D Zelda I haven’t completed) is inferior to the original version with a basic upscale applied. That can’t be entirely true, of course, but it still looks really, really funny.

The aforementioned Fast Fusion also threatens to outshine the return of the perpetually outshined F-Zero GX – and means there will be three racing games vying for attention on launch day. Meanwhile, the legendary Link-toting Soul Calibur II provides its own novel alternative to Street Fighter. The traditional slow scroll of upcoming NSO titles in the Direct seemed just as deliberate, consisting almost exclusively of less well-known titles that didn’t directly clash with anything else in the show or on the recent release calendar. It did remind me that I have yet to play Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance or Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, however, so hopefully those forgotten gems drop during a quiet-ish time in the Switch 2’s dense schedule. Yeah, that seems likely.

Beyond launch, Nintendo brought a mix of new and old, near and far to the table in confident fashion. Kirby Air Riders (yet another racing game from the show) is heading our way later this year, turning the one-off 20-year-old Gamecube game into a franchise. The most exciting thing about it is its director: Masahiro Sakurai of “I turned Kid Icarus into a top-tier Nintendo series” fame (and Super Smash Bros too, I suppose). Koei Tecmo popped up for the next instalment in their thus-far fruitful Nintendo partnership in the form of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, a Zelda spinoff without Link (yet) that seems more likely to be canon than the last Zelda prequel from this team. It’s hard to believe that this is now the fifth Nintendo musou game, but it’s the one with the best chance yet of running above 15FPS.

The “Arms of the Switch 2” in terms of intriguing control scheme and new-IP goodness is Drag X Drive (allegedly pronounced “Drag and Drive” – thanks anime), a 3-on-3 competitive game that combines double mouse controls, gyroscopic sensors and that improved HD Rumble to simulate the feel of wheelchair basketball. The Arms comparison runs deep because I am already seeing a very similar flow of online sentiment towards the game: laughed off at the reveal, but then surprisingly impressive at the hands-on events.

What Drag X Drive does not have over Arms is any kind of visual personality, which is a huge shame because visual personality was arguably half the appeal of that 2017 mid-year gem. This one is also digital-only, which might bely its depth. Drag X Drive may most likely be headed for obscurity, but nonetheless it is the game that has most intensified my salt that I didn’t get into the Melbourne Switch 2 Experience event in May; apparently it works with both joy-cons on your actual legs as you sit down, and that kind of off-the-wall control madness is my specific jam.

The big show-closer from Nintendo themselves was the first new 3D Donkey Kong game in 25 years, the appropriately 90s-named Donkey Kong Bananza. It could not be more obvious that this comes from Nintendo’s main 3D Mario team – or at least its art department – especially when you watch the Treehouse feed and see how the game’s collectibles are treated. This looks like a title that would have melted the original Switch with all its highly destructible environments and overabundant particles, and its unique digging-direction control scheme allegedly works intuitively according to hands-on reports. Thrillingly, the game’s mid-July release date is a tremendously good sign that 2025 is going to hit that 2017 big-game release cadence again, which was so crucial to the Switch’s success. Nintendo will probably be keen to show Bananza on another big stage soon, but I am beyond sold already.

Looking to the future beyond Nintendo, the headlining partner reveal was absolutely The Duskbloods, a distinctly Bloodborne-coded new FromSoftware IP exclusive to the Switch 2 in 2026. The very existence of such a game is kind of a big deal to say the least – and a slightly confusing one given the current relationship between FromSoft’s parent company and Sony – even if its 8-player PvPvE structure suggests it won’t be a fully traditional soulslike adventure. The meaty gameplay showing of the Daemon X Machina sequel announced a while back just felt right sitting inside a Nintendo show, and the glimpse we got of the forever-delayed Hollow Knight: Silksong was as momentous as it was amusingly tiny.

We also got an exclusive look at Enter the Gungeon 2, a neat 007 game tease from IO Interactive, a tasty promise from Square Enix to bring the “Final Fantasy VII remake project” to Switch 2, a completely left-field cameo from Star Wars Outlaws, and the worst Randy Pitchford suit at a game showcase yet – which is no mean feat. If you thought amiibo figures were on the way out in the Switch era, you’re unfortunately dead-wrong, as collectors will have seven more to contend with on June 5th: four new Tears of the Kingdom / Age of Imprisonment amiibo based on the newer champions, and most surprisingly a trio of Street Fighter 6 amiibo (with 22 amiibo cards on top to match up with every fighter). But for all this excitement, the show dated almost nothing beyond August; there is evidently even more to be unveiled yet.

The Spice, the Price & the Roll of the Dice

Oh boy.

A couple of other elements of the presentation and fallout are worth a ponder, particularly after the unexpected extra original Switch Direct that aired last week (incidentally right after I thought it was safe to post a Switch-era Direct ranking). That show introduced a new virtual game card system that seems like a neat idea, but wasn’t explained all that well and has already muddied the waters with a whole bunch of people (at the time of writing we still don’t know if this sharing feature is available on digital-only games or just digital versions of cartridge Nintendo titles). “Weird Nintendo” is not going anywhere, for better or worse.

Firstly, Nintendo has, at long last, built a chat application into one of their consoles. The mysterious C button on all the Switch 2 controller options brings up a bootleg Discord that just looks like it’s begging to crash or glitch out on Australian internet, but Nintendo is so evidently confident in the feature that they would not let anyone forget about it across their entire three-day showcase schedule. The tiny microphone on the top of the Switch 2 chassis allegedly even filters out background noise automatically, and I am extremely skeptical about that, but voice chat is finally there and it’s ready to party.

Next, the curious case of “Nintendo Switch 2 Editions”. These products represent part of the answer to an intriguing – yet unpleasant – question: with almost no Wii U games left to port over, longer game development times on the horizon, and a massive back catalogue of Switch games available on day one, how does Nintendo keep up a steady release cadence and keep making money on legacy titles in the Switch 2 age? Well, one way is by creating significant expansion content and charging appropriately for it.

Mario Party Jamboree + Jamboree TV is the clear headliner of this initiative, packing so many Switch 2-specific minigames and modes you’d swear the title was planned for the new console first, then cut down for a release on the Switch 1. Mouse control minigames, EyeToy-esque face tracking (camera sold separately), even voice-activated controls add extra kitchen-sink chaos to a title that was already packed with variety. The so-called “upgrade pack” will run you $30 AUD if you already own the $80 base game, but Jamboree was such a recent release (October 2024) that I’d wager Nintendo will get plenty of lapsed Switch 1 owners hungry for a multiplayer accompaniment to Mario Kart World who will buy the full Switch 2 Edition for an RRP of $110 in July – yep, that’s the price the majority of Australians have become used to paying for about half of the major PS5 games.

Following this same template in August will be Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World, another enhanced port you can either upgrade for $30 or buy outright for $110. This one adds effectively a super-charged “new game plus” mode to an already-beloved 3D platformer, remixing nearly every level in the game with more enemies and items, but it also comes with the added bonus of improving the look and performance of the original release (a perk Jamboree doesn’t really need). Forgotten Land is an inspired choice for a second life in the afterglow of a new console, I must say, as even I bounced off this one in the weird transitional year of 2022, but people really seem to like it.

Two Switch 2 Edition games that will be there at launch are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel Tears of the Kingdom, which curiously do not charge $30 upgrade fees but $20 instead. Both games launched here for $90 so it’s interesting that Nintendo doesn’t want to exceed $110 for a Switch 2 Edition package at retail. As mentioned at the top of this article, NSO Expansion Pack subscribers will get these upgrades for free (unlike Party or Kirby), which kind of makes sense because while they do look transformatively better, the majority of the newly-added content requires the Nintendo Switch App (renamed from the Nintendo Switch Online App) to access. The new features available with said app, including a surprising amount of new voice work, are so numerous that I’m just going to put the overview trailer here:

Two more Switch 2 Editions were mentioned: the most predictable one of the entire show, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond (complete with mouse controls), and perhaps the least – considering its publisher’s track record – Pokemon Legends Z-A. The question remains as to what upgrade prices these two will opt for, as we don’t even technically know what their Switch 1 prices are yet. But there is yet more to the Switch 2 upgrade story, and it’s rather exciting.

In the Switch 2 development interview that Nintendo put up on the official site right after the Direct, one of the hardware leads mentions the lack of any Switch 1 components inside the Switch 2. This apparently caused a surprising amount of issues in Switch 1 games as they were tested one-by-one for backwards compatibility (what a fun job), and there is now a surprisingly extensive public list of these games available for your perusal. One of them, concerningly, is Rocket League, so that needs urgent attention – and I’m sure it will receive it. In fact, it kind of feels like the list is there just to signal to the developers of these games to patch the issues out where possible.

But supposedly this extensive compatibility testing revealed opportunities to update a short list of original Nintendo Switch games for free, simply to improve performance or add “GameShare” functionality. This list includes, to my great surprise and delight, nothing less than Pokemon Scarlet / Violet and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening / Echoes of Wisdom! I’ll believe the Gen 9 Pokemon games running better than a slideshow in the open world when I see it, but the very presence of the attempt is a massive deal worthy of a multi-paragraph dissertation as to what it means for the main series Pokemon titles. As for the Grezzo-developed top-down Zelda games, well, it’s about time.

Oh yeah, what’s this GameShare, you ask? Well, only one of the coolest features of the whole Switch 2 reveal! A delectable treat for older Nintendo nerds, GameShare mixes the functional return of Nintendo DS Download Play with the technical return of Wii U gamepad streaming tech, allowing one Switch 2 game owner to share a feed directly with up to three other Switches or Switch 2s. On selected games, this means four players on four screens with only one copy of the game between them, and if the Wii U tech comparison from the hardware directors is accurate, that means almost no latency. GameShare can also be used online, but only between Switch 2s, and then you’re at the mercy of standard internet issues, so it’s not as appealing there. But in person? I simply can’t wait to try it out. Shin’en has announced GameShare support on Fast Fusion, by the way, so third parties can apparently make use of it; exciting times.

While we’re on the topic of exciting software features, sure the new home screen UI disappointingly doesn’t look all that new, but the screenshot-sharing process of the Switch ecosystem is apparently about to get a whole lot easier in the Switch 2 era, with the aforementioned Nintendo Switch App set to take on the ability to save the last 100 shots for immediate download on your smartphone a la Playstation and Xbox’s companion apps. That’s an upgrade over the current QR code system that I’ll take every day, and I’ll also take the supposed additional rewind features and CRT shaders coming to N64 emulation via NSO on Switch 2.

For a change of pace that has lit up the internet with misinformation and hysteria over the last few days, Nintendo has also announced a new category of packaged Switch 2 game called “Game Key Cards”. These effectively appear to be digitally-installed games you can sell, lend, return, or trade in as if they were physical, because the license to play the game is tied to the cartridge even if there are no actual game files on it. There is no indication that Nintendo themselves will utilise this with any of their own titles, but on paper the existence of a named, officially-supported category for a phenomenon that has already been happening with cost-cutting third parties for years is a big improvement in customer-facing communication. Customers can now reasonably expect to be warned about space requirements as soon as they see that (very, very red) box art.

The use of Game Key Cards is also a gargantuan improvement over the gradually-increasing amount of third party Switch 1 boxes that just contain download codes, rendering their containers useless after redemption; Warner Bros and 2K Games have been the major offenders over recent years, but Square Enix is currently in the middle of a months-long campaign to re-release a lot of its back catalogue as code-in-a-box versions on Switch 1. In theory, if this basic authenticator cart is cheap enough, it should encourage companies to produce physical releases where they normally might not see a financial benefit in doing so. In theory. For now, it represents a slowing down of the inevitable financial negatives of digital gaming, not an acceleration, and as someone who prefers physical games for cost reasons rather than collecting ones, that’s a win. I certainly wouldn’t have expected a physical edition of the excellent Bravely Default’s new remaster at the deeply-nostalgic $60 price point otherwise.

Speaking of price, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Mario Kart World is launching at $120 AUD, the same price as the biggest third party PS5 games and only $5 less than most PS5 exclusives. The likes of Cyberpunk 2077 and Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion are following suit, but their box art does not indicate the use of Game Key Cards so we can assume they will be on costly cartridges, and they are also proper current-gen games. None of Nintendo’s other exclusives have hit this price point, but the Switch 2 console itself offers a bundle with a digital version of World for only an additional $70 – that’s almost half the price. Early preorder reports indicate that this is the bundle with much bigger production numbers behind it, so make no mistake: Nintendo is making an aggressive play here. They are very confident in this game, and they want it installed permanently on people’s consoles.

Now here in Australia we have been pretty lucky with Nintendo game pricing for well over a decade: Wii exclusives were $100 for us, but the Wii U inexplicably dropped that ceiling by $20 and the Switch made the stunning decision to keep the $80 magic going for eight years, despite some incredibly gnarly inflation spikes, with only the open-air Zelda games, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and the largest of third party ports ever daring to exceed that number. Seeing price parity with Playstation and Xbox definitely sucks – nobody wants to pay more for stuff – but if we’re honest with ourselves, this is kind of something we eventually expected to happen. If anything, we’re still getting away surprisingly well on the Switch 2 console price, as we got dudded a bit on the American exchange rate for both the Wii U and Switch, but $700 is almost a clean $100 less than we should be paying after GST on that $449 USD announced in the land of the free.

This entire time, however, our friends over in that very same US of A basically only ever paid $60 USD for videogames, and they did that for so very long that the $60 tag itself became a culturally immovable icon synonymous with the hobby. When Playstation and Xbox dared to push to $70 with some of their titles a few years ago, citing unavoidable rising costs, the online blowback was widespread and vitriolic. Now Nintendo has not only done the same, but asked $80 USD of the new Mario Kart in the same motion. No comment section is safe from the resulting rage, and with ever-rising costs elsewhere in life that is perfectly understandable; but there is one title arguably copping even more online bile as a flow-on effect of these pricing choices.

Nintendo has historically held a fierce stance against pack-in games internally, maintaining that their developers don’t work for free, and this generation there is no charismatic Reggie Fils-Aime to twist the arms of the top brass in favour of including Wii Sports or Nintendo Land in the box. So it is highly unlikely that Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour was ever going to be anything other than a paid game. The real question is how much it will actually set players back as a download exclusive, but in light of all the other cost increases, it almost doesn’t matter; the fact it isn’t free means the immense creativity and cosy charm of the team behind Labo and Game Builder Garage, with their distinct paws so clearly all over this game, is already getting slept on hard.

Make no mistake, a name like Welcome Tour was always going to invite ridicule as a paid game after the ludicrously expensive meme that was 1-2 Switch in 2017, not to mention the delightful (and free) Astro’s Playroom built into every PS5; this situation is almost entirely Nintendo’s fault. But those two separate weekends I spent with the initial Labo Kit and later its VR evolution were genuinely some of the most fun I had with the Switch over its entire eight-year life cycle, such was the unparalleled whimsy and genuinely insightful use of the hardware they offered. I mean, this new game makes you play through World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros zoomed all the way out so it fits on one screen, just to try and make you stop taking 4K resolutions for granted for one minute. I implore anyone who reads this not to dismiss Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour as a mere “tech demo” if you are lucky enough to get yourself a Switch 2 on launch day; you know, as long as the game doesn’t cost like $70 or something.

In any case, harsh economic realities stare down this console launch from every conceivable angle (I’m just going to put a link to this cold splash of water video here). Nintendo has already made the stunning move to return partially to region-locking, having to offer a much cheaper Switch 2 SKU in its native Japan only capable of playing Japanese-region games with no other language support options – such is the weakness of the Yen at the time of release. And then, on the day after the Direct aired, the US announced tariffs on Vietnam – Nintendo’s primary back-up manufacturing location – so severe that American Switch 2 preorders were delayed until further notice.

Despite its best efforts to stockpile consoles, time partnership deals and keep secrets to combat scalpers and deliver one of the best Directs ever produced, Nintendo now finds itself at a perilous crossroads; regardless of how exciting the prospect of the Switch 2 appears – and it is now so tantalisingly close – the gaming world waits with baited breath for the outcome of this delay. Nintendo cannot afford to lose the US market by pricing it out, but it also cannot afford to eat a cost as large as the one it may now face if these tariffs go through as announced. Sony, Microsoft, and even Apple will have the popcorn and the notebooks out, as they’re not the ones launching a new piece of hardware inside this political shitstorm, but they could definitely be affected later. Better get ready for a barn-burning GTA VI price tag; this is a potentially monumental last-minute twist.

The Questions

It wouldn’t be a Nintendo hardware presentation without a fresh batch of unanswered questions that bring the furrowed first-world brows out in force. But I am very tired, so I’m just going to put them in bullet point form and get this over with.

• If the Metroid Prime 4: Beyond release date was not being hidden in the final Switch 1 Nintendo Direct so it could be revealed in the Switch 2 one – as many assumed – what’s the deal? When will the game release? Will it get its time in the sun or will the series once again get buried by something else with more mainstream appeal?
• Why isn’t Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster coming to Switch 1? As much as I like that price, two mouse minigames doesn’t feel like enough to make the whole game a next-gen exclusive, even though it’s original art still looks way better than Bravely Default II;
• Many Nintendo series were understandably absent from all the exciting Switch 2 Edition chat, but the lack of Xenoblade seemed particularly noticeable in light of a leaked 60FPS option found in the code of Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition; does this need more time in the oven, is it even possible to implement without bugs, or did the game simply release too recently and Nintendo didn’t want to make the loyal fans regret buying an ultimately inferior version?

• If Nintendo won’t replace the Gold Points / Game Vouchers systems of the Switch 1 era (they sure didn’t announce any new system to replace them), will digital games just be flat-out cheaper here in Australia to make up for it, like they will apparently be in Europe? If so, what’s the difference we can expect? $10? $15? Sure, it’s unlikely to be anywhere near enough to make up for the multiple cost advantages of physical gaming, but something would be nice for the digital-only people who used Gold Points and Game Vouchers regularly;
• The preorder accessory list is so expansive that the question must be asked: why is there no standalone dock option? Are the docks simply too precious to sell separately without Switch 2s yet? Will that cooling fan raise the price of an otherwise very familiar design towards $200 AUD? Perish the thought, but I would like to be able to access at least one more to keep my own Switch play habits going;
• Will Game Boy Advance connectivity just be left alone on all the GameCube NSO games that initially supported it, or will Nintendo somehow try to include things like The Wind Waker‘s Tingle Tuner or *gasp* set up a potential online Four Swords Adventures situation?
• With densely-packed back-to-back Direct shows in the space of a week and a dedicated Mario Kart World show coming up very soon, will Nintendo skip out on their traditional Summer Game Fest-adjacent June Direct? Sure seems unlikely, given the relative emptiness of the September-December window for both Switch consoles at the moment.

And that’s I’ve got to say, after easily my longest console announcement post in history. As soon as I publish this I’m sure more crazy news will drop, but I’m done. If anyone needs me I’ll be sitting here watching the calendar tick down to June 5th.