Switch 2 🎮

The Nintendo Switch 2 is neat and kinda weird. I mostly really like it. I still haven’t gotten my invite to order one from Nintendo, but I knew someone who got several preorders so I bought from him at MSRP.

First impressions were a bit weird. I wanted to just quickly migrate my save games from my Switch 1, but apparently it requires that both consoles be plugged into first-party power adapters to start the transfer. Luckily, it only checks once when starting the process on each device, so I was able to use the Switch 2 power adapter for both devices, temporarily plugging each in only during the initial check. My other USB-C PD options were not accepted by the migration tool even when they powered and charged both devices perfectly fine. This was especially silly because the transfer only took about 5 minutes!

Once set up, it’s a Switch, but better. In docked mode, every Switch game just runs way better, and the Switch controllers generally work as expected. It’s annoying that Switch 1 controllers can’t power it on, because that’s definitely an intentional feature restriction to get people to buy new a Pro Controller, but BOTW has never looked better at 1440p 60 on my OLED TV.

In handheld, the display is noticeably larger, brighter, and more saturated than the original Switch LCD. VRR and 120 Hz support are very nice, and make a big difference in many games that struggle to keep a consistent V-Sync frame-rate. I’m hopeful that they figure out VRR support on the dock despite the DisplayPort to HDMI conversion limitations, because it’s incredibly helpful for some games.

Switch 1 games that haven’t had proper Switch 2 patches yet look pretty bad in handheld play. The 720p game resolution is resampled to the 1080p display with only basic filtering, causing every pixel to be mismatched. UIs look especially blurry, but anything with pixel-sized detail looks quite bad. Any high-contrast edge becomes blurred across pixels, and it looks noticely worse than on Switch 1’s native 720p display. For games with 1080p support in handheld though, the Switch 2 is a huge upgrade from the original, though still falls behind the overall display quality of the Switch OLED model.

I would love to see better software features for either running the 1080p docked mode in some games while handheld, or a broader range of Switch 2 compatibility patches to run at native resolution on handheld, at least for the UI elements if nothing else. Almost every game should have > 720p UI available for docked mode on Switch 1, so it shouldn’t typically require any new assets.

The console is quite heavy and uncomfortable to hold for long periods. The Joy-Con shape is similar to the original Switch, but with the larger size and added weight (it’s even a bit bigger than the Steam Deck!), it would’ve been really nice to have something more ergonomic for the controllers. Coming from a Steam Deck, it’s far less enjoyable to hold.

The 256 GB internal storage is a great improvement from 32 GB, but I still have enough digital games to still need a microSD Express card. Luckily it seems Nintendo’s partnered Samsung 256 GB card is typically in-stock at MSRP everywhere, so they clearly planned for this. I do wish it still supported SDXC for Switch 1 games, similar to how PS4 games can be played on PS5. SDXC is much cheaper (less than half the price) for now.

I named my original Switch “Squiddy”, as I mainly got back into modern Nintendo consoles for the Splatoon series. To follow up on that, my Switch 2 is named “Ikatsu” (squid + strong). I considered に (“ni”/2) instead of つ since it’s a Switch 2, but I like the sound of いかつ more. I also considered くろうみ since it’s a black sea creature. Naming electronics is silly but fun.