the Nintendo Switch feels like a victim of Nintendo’s own history having set decadesl long expectations that new hardware will always be if not always revolutionary at least deeply strange the Wii DS 3DS Wii U and Nintendo Switch each relied on some central gimmick that was new and novel the Nintendo Switch 2 by comparison is an iterative step a more powerful successor to its wildly popular predecessor while some may lament that this isn’t the system to change the game once again it does feel like Nintendo has found a form factor that fits its design philosophy and development culture like a glove and so the Switch is likely the new normal it’s within that context that I feel the Switch 2 needs to be evaluated as what it is rather than what it isn’t by that metric it gets high marks it’s a well-made Switch successor with lots of little thoughtful touches and design improvements to make it feel like a more premium product that means it’s less toylike than the original Switch which makes me that much more nervous about handing it off to my kids but in many ways it feels like the Switch has grown up the Nintendo Switch 2 is first and foremost a power upgrade nintendo promises a big increase in performance and while I’m not equipped for deep technical hardware analysis science from the launch library feel somewhat promising nintendo’s own banner firstp party game Mario Kart World looks far and way better than anything the old Switch could offer the third party Cyberpunk 2077 serves as another positive demonstration while not perfect it looks good and plays reasonably well something that would not have been possible on Switch One but the results across the board do seem somewhat mixed as the performance of Hitman World of Assassination is disappointing particularly in docked mode where you can’t benefit from support for a variable refresh rate nintendo hasn’t usually attempted to design hardware that is the absolute best in class but the Switch 2 feels so far like it’s at least keeping pace with the PS5 and Xbox Series X and S not quite a match for those competitors but at least in the same ballpark time will tell how futureproofed it is but as a handheld system that seems roughly on par with the competitive handheld PC market it succeeds and the increased horsepower already makes the Switch ecosystem more pleasant to use the eShop in particular seems to be benefiting going from near unusable to quite smooth in many ways this is a continuation of the Switch which is evident in everything from its form factor to its user interface being almost an exact replica of the original right down to its more frustrating foibless like a lack of folders and no real download management cue so while the increased horsepower benefits software in some areas in most other respects this is a continuation of the Switch ecosystem nintendo wants this to feel familiar and homey and for better or worse it does then there’s the build of the system itself in some ways this is where the hardware has been most notably improved to have that more premium fit and finish appeal but in other ways the form factor feels limited by its own expectations the newly designed Joy-Cons are larger and have a matte finish that feels very nice against your hand they’re also now magnetic which I was skeptical about but I’ve since turned into a magnetic Joy-Con believer and even jealous the ability to quickly snap them into place and then hit the release button to snap them off just feels immediately better than gliding the controllers along the rail and seems likely to avoid some of the unfortunate wiggle that would set in on the old Joy-Cons the new JoyCons also introduce mouse functionality which works shockingly well like with the magnetic connectors I had low expectations for the mouse function and it easily surpassed that particularly if you take the moment to attach the new Joy-Con strap it controls incredibly smoothly and just works with a minimum fuss and setup i don’t know how many games will actually use the mouse functionality but it’s nice to know it’s there if a developer wants to take advantage of it unfortunately while the Joy-Cons are larger their fundamental shape hasn’t changed they’re still relatively thin to match the profile of the system itself which means holding it can feel awkward in long play sessions also the Joy-Cons can now be pinged remotely to vibrate or emit a beep in case you’ve lost them under a chair it’s a small quality of life touch but the kind that exemplifies a thoughtful approach with lessons learned from the original Switch the kickstand was a cute idea when introduced in the first Switch but it always felt too flimsy to be truly useful the Switch 2 kickstand by comparison is substantial and solid and has been the unsung hero of the system i’ve actually now used it most exclusively while traveling because it’s such a great way to prop up the system on a desk and play with detached Joy-Cons or a Pro Controller i still expect to play mostly in handheld mode or docked but playing with the kickstand feels like a viable option like it never did before having used my Switch 2 heavily for more than a week now I’ve been pleased with the battery life mario Kart World seems to be the most taxing game I played at launch and I still got a few hours out of it before seeing a low battery indicator the most helpful aspect for maintaining battery life though is the presence of a USBC port at the top of the system in addition to the one at the bottom this has made playing with the kickstand and the system plugged in a viable option for the first time and just makes plugging it in more convenient in any event finally there’s the LCD screen which is now noticeably larger than that of the original Switch the bigger size looks very nice and feels more substantial with the increased horsepower making lots of fine details in games like Mario Kart World the larger screen looks crisp and beautiful and helps highlight the visual flare of its games that said the original Switch OLED does have noticeably better contrast in a sideby-side comparison the difference is less stark than I expected but there is a difference so the Switch 2 LED display is a slight downgrade from that higher-end Switch One the difference is negligible enough that the increased size may be an acceptable trade-off depending on your priorities personally I prefer the larger screen which is also noticeably bigger than my first gen Steam Deck also notable is that some at GameSpot have experienced ghosting issues in handheld mode even complaining that it made them feel sick that could vary by game plus Nintendo has made some peculiar choices in its implementation of HDR it applies HDR to everything by default and hides the paper white setting deep in the menus those can both be changed but I suspect many casual Switch 2 owners won’t know where to look and just have a less than optimized experience the lack of VRR support or 40 Hz mode in dock mode similarly is disappointing when you buy a new video game system naturally you want to play some video games at launch the Switch 2 library is relatively thin with a few absolute standouts that means that early adopters will mostly be investing in the potential it holds for the future that is not to say that the game library is without its bright spots already though mario Kart World is the banner launch game and the long awaited follow-up to one of Nintendo’s most successful games to date it is a spectacular entry in the series with loads to do and lots of mechanical nuance and it’s just a nice visual showpiece for what Nintendo’s expert art direction can do with increased horsepower nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour the other big first party offering at launch is less a game than a detailed tech demo and while I maintain that it should have been free that is mostly because it’s a neat little oddity that more people should get a chance to play it is a great way to familiarize yourself with Switch 2 features and little quality of life tricks you may not have otherwise known about as for thirdparty offerings there are some standouts there as well bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remastered is a gorgeousl looking port of one of my favorite recentish RPGs and decouples it from the DS where it may have been difficult to find and play cyberpunk 2077 takes the lauded futuristic RPG and gives it a nicely tuned handheld home but the real treat for many Switch One owners is that the Switch 2 is backwards compatible and with a similar hardware architecture and form factor the vast majority of the games can run on Switch 2 some of them offer paid Switch 2 edition upgrades for extra features and a performance boost while others have gotten free updates to just run a bit better on the new hardware the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are two particular standouts as those massive open worlds sometimes strained against the limitations of the Switch hardware they look incredibly detailed with the upgrades creating a rich world that feels like the culmination of what Nintendo always intended them to be similarly Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were well-made Pokémon games and they were done a disservice by trying to cram their world on to a Switch they’re among the games to have received free Switch 2 updates and the revised versions run smoothly and look much better even if some of their art design feels like the simplicity was a concession to old hardware if Nintendo has offered one major software update as a marquee feature for Switch 2 it’s game chat after a half-hearted effort at social hooks managed through the Nintendo mobile app on the original Switch this represents a built-in option for talking with friends including the theoretically whisbang option to see your friends’s games in addition to hearing their voices while the feature looked rough in Nintendo’s own debuted footage and it certainly is slightly choppy in practice I’ve been pleasantly surprised with Game Chat the system level integration means it’s very quick and snappy to turn options on and off letting you toggle any mixture of camera microphone and screen sharing the Switch never felt like a very sociable console to me and thanks to its friends list continuing to rely on friend codes the Switch 2 might not either but this is a step in the right direction the ability to quickly start up a chat with a buddy and simply have it running in the background as we team up or even play separate games is a nice feature the camera functionality works well too whether grabbing your surroundings and filtering out the background by default in the system level chat or focusing in on your face for an icon that will follow your player around in Mario Kart World the screen sharing feature lets you view up to three friends’s screens simultaneously in panled windows letting you peek in on their progress in whatever game they’re playing even if it’s not the same as yours while certainly not clear as day this actually ran reasonably well the video feed doesn’t run as well as your own game running on native hardware of course but as a way to quickly peek in on your friends’s game it actually works even in less than ideal conditions like hotel Wi-Fi along with the ease of use for toggling the various chat functions there are also little touches that help flesh out the experience you can use a texttospech function that in my testing worked well and captured the words on both ends of the conversation you can highlight a game your friend is playing and hop right into its page on the Nintendo eShop which may help discoverability that ease of use does make it stand out when finding small hiccups that don’t work exactly the way you’d think the game chat menu does not shortcut to the friends menu so to add a new friend you need to back out into the home menu entirely and add a friend the way you always would only after that are you able to invite them to a game chat the placement of the game chat button is also a little confusing since it’s so close to the much more often used home button i’ve definitely pressed home when I meant to press game chat and vice versa more than once this will probably just be a matter of adjustment and Nintendo did make the buttons different shapes to help your fingers learn the difference but mine haven’t yet over the last several consoles Nintendo has been the scrappy underdog its experimental approach was an apparent way to compensate for the fact that it was getting outpaced in hardware by the likes of PlayStation and Xbox the Wii remote controller the 3DS’s glasses free 3D feature and even the original Switch’s hybrid console handheld approach were all born out of an attempt to take on the juggernauts without matching their power but now the Switch is one of Nintendo’s most successful pieces of hardware of all time for the first time in a long time the rest of the industry is following Nintendo’s lead as evidenced by the emergence and growing popularity of handheld PCs and reexploration of handheld gaming by Sony and Microsoft so it should not come as a surprise that Nintendo is a little less daring this time around the Switch 2 is fully a successor to the original Switch with many of the same high highs and low lows of the original it does feel like a more premium piece of hardware and some thoughtful improvements like the magnetic Joy-Cons and Game Chat are nice to have but as always with Nintendo hardware the real treat is Nintendo’s own software thanks to its increased horsepower the Nintendo Switch 2 should be able to reasonably handle high-end third-p partyy games like Cyberpunk 2077 alongside Nintendo’s exclusives like Mario Kart World that is a major advantage that its competitors can’t match and more than reason enough to make me a happy Switch to owner [Music]