As the dust settles on last week’s grand Nintendo Switch 2 reveal, fans of go-karting plumbers and tie-wearing gorillas can really start to get excited about the next generation of gaming on The Big N’s upcoming console.
I am emphatically one of those people, but as I watched the Switch 2 Direct and studied the console’s spec sheet (well, the specs Nintendo has elected to give us so far), I started to wonder if my Switch habits are going to change when the new hardware arrives in June.
Let me explain. When I got my first-generation Switch at launch, I couldn’t get enough of the console’s then brand new hybrid functionality. Nintendo opting to merge its handheld and home console businesses into one machine obviously proved to be a stroke of genius, and more than eight years later there’s still something magical about how seamless it all is. As I poured tens of hours into Breath of the Wild in those first few months, I’d hop between handheld and TV mode all the time. The duration of my two-hour-long daily commute would be spent in small-screen Hyrule, and the adventures would continue on the telly in the evenings. Poor old Link barely had a minute to catch his breath.
Then came the delightful Switch Lite, which I reviewed for Stuff at the time, and the improved ergonomics of the little handheld-only machine meant it became my main Switch for some time. I was quite content to play most of Nintendo’s first-party releases, as well as countless indies, exclusively on my turquoise Switch Lite’s 5.5in display – until the Switch OLED arrived. As soon as I started playing Metroid Dread on the refreshed hardware and marvelling at its wonderfully vivid colours and inky blacks, I knew my beloved Lite was going to be spending some time in a drawer, and I never looked back.
The Switch OLED’s display is so good that even though I have the option of docking to the TV, I rarely feel the need, and since it launched in 2021, I’ve probably been a 90% handheld Switch player. There’s something about a 7in OLED panel you hold right in front of your face that pops in a way that not even my 55in OLED TV does, and as the Switch has really started to show its age in recent years (you could argue it was outdated from day one), I’ve found that blowing games up on a big TV exposes their visual shortcomings and muddy textures even more, especially when I’m so used to 4K (or at least higher resolution) gaming on the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Some Switch games run better in TV mode than handheld, but never so much so that I’m reaching for the dock in disgust, and the smaller display just makes it easier to tolerate what is effectively an ancient smartphone chip-powered games console in 2025. For me anyway.
Dawn of a new day
Which brings me (finally) to the Switch 2. It became clear pretty quickly during last week’s Switch 2 Direct that this is a considerably more powerful bit of kit than its outgoing little brother. In a recent blog post, Nvidia said we can expect 10x the graphics performance of the original Switch. In handheld mode, we’re getting a 120Hz VRR LCD display that can run games at up to 1080p, beating out the Steam Deck, which has been eating the current Switch’s lunch in the performance department for the last few years. That display also features HDR, which is a game-changer when implemented properly.
But it’s the TV mode upgrade that really got me thinking. The Switch 2 is capable of up to 4K 60fps output, while the new dock has a fan built into it to ensure the console doesn’t get too toasty as its rendering a pin sharp Mushroom Kingdom with silky smooth gameplay. How many Switch 2 games will actually hit that 4K/60 ceiling natively in practice remains to be seen, and Nintendo’s likely going to be relying on some under-the-hood upscaling tech to get the job done.
But either way, this is a massive upgrade for gaming on Nintendo’s platform, and the thought of playing the latest Mario and Zelda games with something resembling cutting edge graphical oomph on my OLED TV feels a bit like a fever dream as a Nintendo fan used to settling for compromised hardware. Handheld mode is significantly improved too, but I’ll no longer be playing games on an OLED display there, however good that new HDR LCD is, and it’s making me wonder if TV mode might soon be my preferred way of playing Switch 2 games, after a good half decade of being firmly in team handheld.
When I’m travelling or have a hankering to play something in bed, the Switch 2 is still going to get a lot of handheld attention, and like its predecessor, that versatility will be its greatest strength. The additions of HDR and especially VRR should make a huge difference for handheld play too. The latter is something I really wish the Steam Deck OLED had when I’m playing more graphically-intensive games, and its inclusion on the Switch 2 is a win for Nintendo gamers who care about performance. But if we’re getting anything close to smooth 4K gameplay in TV mode for Nintendo-optimised first-party titles, that could give big-screen play the edge when I have the choice.
That is, until the inevitable arrival of the Switch 2 OLED in a few years.
