According to a new report, Nintendo’s long-awaited successor to the Switch will be larger and feature some form of magnetic Joy-Cons.
That’s according to a new report from Spanish website Vandal, as spotted by SemiLazyGamer on Reddit.
From here, any quotes used are taken from Google translations of what Vandal wrote, so there may be issues with translating directly from Spanish to English.
“Today it is Vandal that can share exclusive details of the Japanese company’s upcoming hardware after having received information from manufacturer’s who have already had a first contact with Switch 2. Specifically, our colleague Ruben Mercade has been the one who has had access to those exclusive details during a fair with accessory manufacturing companies, as just happened with Nintendo Switch Oled.”
Vandal is referring to their own prior reporting in May of 2021 where they correctly predicted that Nintendo intended on releasing an OLED Switch with a bigger screen, a new dock featuring an Ethernet port and a new stand. They didn’t quite get the date right – the console ended up launching a month later than they believed, but overall the report was very accurate.
However, with that said, Vandal is typically not viewed as a reliable source in Spain, so take everything with a pinch of salt.
Vandal claims that the accessory manufacturers they spoke to were not allowed to see the new Switch, but could touch it. Nintendo allegedly put their new console inside of an opaque box, and people were allowed to put their hands inside and touch the hardware in order to get a feel for its dimensions.
This might sound crazy, but tech companies have actually done this in the past.
Vandal goes on to say: “Thanks to that we known that it would be larger than the Switch, although without reaching the size of the Steam Deck.”
Vandal then went on to discuss a potential new feature of the Switch 2: magnetic Joy-Cons.
“It has also be learned that Nintendo could have opted to maintain the Switch Joy-Con, but with a fundamental change in its design: instead of the rails of the current console, the new Switch 2 controllers would join the screen of magnetic form.”
Vandal noted that this change would make “full compatibility with the current Joy-Con difficult” but did say that current Pro Controllers would work with the Switch 2.
Yoshiaki Koizumi, Senior Executive Officer at Nintendo, has previously discussed the fact that during development of the original Switch magnetic Joy-Cons were considered, but the idea was dropped due to worries that people would pick up the Switch by the Joy-Con and the magnetic connection wouldn’t be able to handle that.
It seems odd Nintendo would want to return to the idea, unless they also have a secondary system in place to help hold the Joy-Cons while also making it easier to take them on and off.
Finally, Vandal says that the people they spoke to claim the Switch 2 is actually ready to go, but that Nintendo wants to wait so it can hit market with a “more powerful” catalog of games. This is what prior reports from other insiders have stated, too.
Previous reports have also suggested that the Switch 2 was being demoed behind closed doors at Gamescom in Cologne last year. Those same reports suggested it could output visuals to match the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, largely because of a heavy focus on upscaling technology.
Nintendo certainly don’t need to rush a new Switch since the original one is still selling extremely well despite its age.