Half a year ago, when I learned the exact launch date of the Switch 2, I gave my Switch OLED (which had been gathering dust for about two months) to a friend. My plan was to wait and see until the Switch 2’s pricing stabilized and market reviews became more reliable. Now that I’ve had the new Switch 2 for almost a week, bought several new games, and upgraded a few older ones, I think I can write a brief review from the perspective of an average player. If an upgrade or change is mentioned in this text without explicitly stating the comparison object, it is being compared to the Switch OLED in handheld mode.
Let’s start with the hardware. The screen brightness and color performance are both decent; it is a good quality LCD panel. However, although the new screen has a higher resolution, non-Switch 2 games have not been optimized for it. Games without upgrade patches, such as Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Metroid Prime, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, still look very blurry. In fact, because the screen is larger but the render resolution remains the same, they visually appear even blurrier. While the panel itself supports a 120Hz refresh rate, most games currently do not support this feature.
As for the Joy-Cons, there is a noticeable improvement in the quality of the thumbsticks. Compared to the very plasticky feel of the previous generation, at least they no longer make that spring-snapping noise when returning to the center. The buttons feel basically the same, while the vibration feedback is a bit more refined. The shoulder buttons still feel loose and mushy; subjectively, there is no improvement there. For motion-heavy games, the new Joy-Cons might have compatibility issues. For example, in Ring Fit Adventure, the left Joy-Con works fine, but the right one cannot be inserted into the Ring-Con, nor did I see an IR sensor. Therefore, you still need to buy first-generation Joy-Cons to play it. The magnetic attachment is tighter than the old rail system, but it’s still not a perfectly seamless fit and will wobble slightly. As for the truly “new” feature—the mouse functionality—I personally find this design awkward. Either let me use a real mouse for games that require mouse input, or I simply will not use this feature.
Regarding game performance, the degree of improvement varies from game to game. Take The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom as an example of a significant improvement. With the upgrade patch, it runs very smoothly on the new console, maintaining a stable 60 FPS visually (even when unplugged). However, there is still quite a bit of visible aliasing, and the visual effects haven’t noticeably improved. The loading speeds for fast travel and shrines are drastically faster. Although it still takes about three to five seconds, compared to the ten seconds it basically took on the previous generation, it’s a massive leap. On the other hand, games with no noticeable improvements, like Super Mario Odyssey, feel exactly the same as the previous generation, even though it claims to have a “free upgrade” for the new console. As for games not optimized for the new Switch, don’t expect any enhancements. Overall, if every game could receive this level of upgrade on the Switch 2, buying new hardware for the performance boost makes sense. But if you already own the previous generation and the games you want to play can run at 60 FPS, the need to upgrade is minimal. Another thing to note is that all games with perceivable improvements require you to purchase upgrade patches. Even worse, games like Hogwarts Legacy offer no upgrade path at all, requiring you to repurchase the Switch 2 version entirely. Sony really does handle this much better.
In other hardware aspects, the speaker volume and clarity have received a substantial upgrade. The charging speed subjectively feels no different from the previous generation, but the battery life is noticeably worse. Nintendo’s official reason for not adding fast charging is potential battery damage, but on a device with battery life this poor, I do not find that explanation convincing. However, this time there are USB-C ports on both sides of the console for charging, making the plugged-in play experience much more flexible than before. The kickstand on the back is fairly stable. If your MicroSD card isn’t of the “Express” specification, it simply cannot be read (even the Nintendo co-branded MicroSD card I bought couldn’t be recognized in my testing, which is disappointing). Data migration still requires having another Switch nearby; if you don’t, your only option is to rely on cloud backups through an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription (many of my saves were permanently lost because they weren’t backed up).
In conclusion, the hardware upgrade is just okay. Moving from the 1 to the 2 feels like replacing a three-year-old smartphone with the latest model: the improvements are definitely there, but it wouldn’t hurt to skip it. People who already own a Switch and have played plenty of first-party titles don’t need to rush. However, for friends who don’t own the first generation and are interested in Nintendo’s first-party games, picking one up is a solid choice. It’s just that compared to before, not only are Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers gone, but game prices have also increased significantly. I personally believe that whether to buy a Switch 2 depends entirely on whether there are Nintendo first-party games you want to play, just like before. For any third-party games, I think there are always better choices on other platforms (including the so-called watered-down versions of Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition).
In short, this review serves purely to document my initial, subjective impressions of the Switch 2. Feel free to leave any comments or point out inaccuracies. I also hope this helps anyone reading it by providing some reference for your potential purchase (or dissuading you so you can choose a product more suited to you). Finally, I wish everyone can find games they love and derive the happiness they seek from them.
Miscellaneous
Since the Switch 2 was announced, the internet has been flooded with disappointment over its “lack of innovation.” Many people criticized Nintendo, arguing that compared to past consoles that brought surprises every generation, the Switch 2 is nothing more than an uninspiring performance upgrade. To me, however, the Switch 2 is decent. Rather than “meaningless innovation,” I much prefer “mature solutions with steady improvements.” The logic behind this view stems from a core question: “What actually constitutes meaningful innovation?”
My point is: any innovation must solve real problems. If a “revolution” merely provides new options without better solving old problems, it is essentially just a gimmick.
I believe “innovation” comes in two forms. The first is “foundational experience evolution.” Take the PS5 as an example: it brought faster loading times, better graphics, and the DualSense controller. These content-serving innovations didn’t introduce new gaming formats, nor did they overturn how we play games, but their advancements vastly improved the experience within the existing framework, because every aspect of gaming utilizes these technologies.
The second is “content interaction revolution.” Take the Apple Vision Pro as an example: it offers an entirely new interaction paradigm, but problems immediately follow. What problems does it solve? What are its use cases? Despite being a revolution, it still cannot escape the dilemma of being “heavy, having short battery life, and lacking a killer app.”
When we talk about the Switch, what are we really talking about? First, we must recognize that Nintendo’s first-party games and the hardware design philosophy of “sharing games with others anytime, anywhere” are the Switch’s core competitive advantages. Nintendo’s past innovations (like Labo or the Ring-Con) acted on interaction methods and genuinely delivered unique experiences you couldn’t find anywhere else. However, they have already fulfilled their missions. Creating the exact same type of products in the future would be called the reuse of solutions, rather than the birth of something new.
Since 2017, what has been the most criticized shortcoming and bottleneck of the Switch? It clearly isn’t “the form factor isn’t new enough,” but rather “the performance is insufficient to support the experience.” Masterpieces like Breath of the Wild need technical support to add the finishing touches to an already solid experience. The Switch 2’s performance boost exists precisely to serve this core concept of “gaming experience.” As a new-generation console, when compared to its competitors, this “first type of innovation” seems to have arrived far too late. But compared to the previous generation, the leap is significant and worthy of praise. Especially the addition of DLSS, the 120Hz screen in handheld mode, and the magnetic controller design—while regrets still remain, I believe the direction is correct. If one insists on demanding the “second type of innovation” brought by a “different” hardware form factor, players must trace back the origin of their demands: what exact revolution are we expecting a new hardware form factor to bring us? Therefore, the Switch 2’s naming simply adds a “2” to the base “Switch.” It is still a Switch, just one from 2025.
In my personal opinion, the “innovation dilemma” facing the Switch 2 is not unique to Nintendo; it is an inevitable result of the entire industry developing to its current stage. The League of Legends of ten years ago is still League of Legends today. The FPS players of ten years ago are playing games based on the exact same underlying logic today. The interactive mediums we are most familiar with for gaming—screens, keyboards, mice, and headphones—have never changed. I am not definitively claiming this is the “optimal solution,” but in the current industry, shaped jointly by the technological landscape and player demands, you really cannot find a more universally applicable solution.
The last interactive revolution in the gaming industry was the touch-based interface brought by smartphones. It birthed entirely new genres of games. But since then, both game consoles and PCs have entered a long phase of “experience evolution.” Therefore, from the very beginning, I never expected the Switch 2 to make earth-shattering changes to gameplay or form factor. On the contrary, I was somewhat relieved to see that Nintendo didn’t force out a gimmick just for the sake of it.
No matter the era, what truly drives us to play games is the game content itself. To reiterate my personal view: when you are looking forward to a complete revolution in interaction logic, you should be prepared to depict what that future might look like, and possess an understanding of the boundaries of what current mature technologies can achieve. If you harbor empty expectations without the corresponding awareness, then please accept the mediocrity of the Switch 2, and the reality that the entire industry is moving forward slowly, yet still with hope.