Unveiling the Hidden Lives of Others: The Switch 2 Phenomenon
If you have been scrolling through social media over the past few days (or let’s be honest, over the past few years), you have likely encountered an abundance of speculation regarding the arrival of the Switch successor.
The latest rumors suggested that Wednesday, January 8, would be the first significant day after the holidays for Nintendo to finally unveil ‘Switch 2’. With everyone worldwide back in the swing of business, it seemed to make sense to lay all the conjecture to rest with an official announcement in early January.
Yet here we are, immersed in discussions about the console, but none of it is coming from Nintendo itself.
Instead, it’s accessory manufacturers who are providing the information, or at least a snippet of it. Accessories company Genki indicated last week that it intended to reveal and discuss the Switch 2 along with its lineup of peripherals at CES 2025, and they’ve followed through on that promise. Indeed, Genki’s video showcases the most refined glimpse of the unannounced hardware we have seen thus far.
The company’s depiction of the device is obviously housed in its upcoming “NS2” case — let’s not forget the main reason why so many accessory makers are eager to get ahead of an official news — but the overall design aligns with the leaked details we’ve noticed since the initial supposed hardware images surfaced online back in September.
And it’s not just Genki. Accessory companies all around are joining the fray. Dbrand was the first out of the blocks, certainly, and now Funlab has hopped on the train:
Elsewhere, Felipe Lima from Universo Nintendo claims to possess a remarkable mock-up of the final Switch 2 design, as provided by a source. It looks surprisingly similar to the logo we have been observing for weeks (a large ‘2’ alongside the Joy-Con symbols) and there is a strong likelihood it’s legitimate as well.
With this frenzy of details and conjecture swirling around, the burning question is WHY AREN’T YOU JUST ANNOUNCING THE THING, NINTENDO!?!?!? Are you going to sit idle while every case manufacturer on the block engages in the same tactic? Surely, as the platform holder, you ought to have a strategy in place to clarify your messaging before every chip is exposed, every transistor counted, and every secret divulged? Getting all your ducks in a row is important, yet the reveal was scheduled months ago, right? You have the trailer ready on a hard drive, waiting to be unleashed, correct?
Or maybe it’s bewildering, maddening, exhausting… but perhaps ‘frenzy’ is the key term here. The internet is becoming a bit unhinged (well, a bit more than usual, if that’s possible), yet you can’t buy the kind of publicity this is generating. #NintendoSwitch2 is trending quite robustly, and Nintendo’s team has done absolutely nothing to drive it there.
It’s also worth noting that, from a different perspective (and assuming the legitimate-looking leaks are accurate), this may be the least thrilling Nintendo console reveal in the company’s history. Don’t misunderstand us – we’re extremely eager to see the final product and gawk at incredibly high-resolution official renders, and we can’t wait to finally get our hands on this device to play new games on fresh Nintendo hardware. It doesn’t get much better than that!
However, from a typical hardware standpoint, it appears to resemble exactly the device we speculated was in development five years ago when we were dreaming of a ‘Switch Pro’. Larger screen, enhanced power, 4K upscaling in the dock – you name it, it was rumored long, long ago.