Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

Relevant: https://www.nintendo.com/successor/en-us/index.html

Nintendo Direct focused on Switch 2: Apr 2nd.

Looks like joy-cons will have 'mouse-like' functionality and there's a 'C' on right joy-con but its functionality is not reveled. New Mario Kart showcased would probably be one of the first exclusives.

That was a new mario kart? it looked like mario kart 8 to me.

A few details are quite different from 8, notably the boost and character animations, it's definitely a new game.

Marketing will be difficult, MK8 already peaked graphically and has 96 tracks, and will still work on Switch 2. I hope they'll find real selling points for MK9.

Karts look different from 8

Donkey Kong has a new design, it’s definitely the new game.

I was honestly a bit disappointed this wasn't revealed in a Nintendo Direct.

"Nintendo Direct: New games in 2025" would have been the perfect setup for a "and one more thing"-moment.

> "and one more thing"-moment

That's so cliche and cringe nowadays, but the reason they didn't wait to do that is probably because of all the leaks. The specs, the name, photos of the console and internal components all leaked. Even the fan renders people were making turned out to be pretty damn accurate (https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/1i008os/nin...)

Would have not surprised me if it's actually Mario Kart 8 2. (Technically that's already what Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is, so, actually, it would be Mario Kart 8 3).

I mean, at this point it makes little sense for them to start from scratch, releasing a newer game but with much less than the enormous amount of content provided by MK8D + DLC would seem like a very noticeable downgrade, so just revamping the old one would be a practical move, though I don't think fans would be happy with that.

MK8 was mostly flawless gameplay wise, how can it be improved? But at this point one has no choice but to trust Nintendo's ability to come up with surprises.

There are certainly some ways they can, I'd love to see a 100 man race or something crazy like that.

That's not one of the gazillion Mario Kart 8 tracks.

Leaks say C is Campus, equal to the PS share button.

To be fair, if we’re going by track alone, there’s nothing to say it’s not just a new track for the Switch 2 release (or even just released at the same time, but available on both).

There are 24 starting positions visible while MK8 only supported 12-player races.

Calling anything “cringe” is pretty self-referential. This slang just makes me imagine a bunch of genZ folk wincing nonstop with the heads in their phones. Must be exhausting.

As long as the internet has existed, we have been lampooning corporate keynotes. The gaming industry does this every cycle, trying to hype up incremental updates as if it’s the best thing to ever get released. See you again in a few years!

yeah, i agree on that, makes more sense to update 8.

BUT, i don't know if i would use that as the first look at the new console, basically looks like really similar to a game that was released 10 years ago, i wouldn't buy a new system to play again mario kart 8.

I thought they were showing the retro compatibility feature, since the gameplay comes after the message that switch 1 games would be playable on 2 (maybe upscaled or something)

MK8 was also an iteration on MK7, with refinements to the handling, the addition of anti-gravity, and tweaks to items. It's certain there's going to be _some_ sort of mechanical shakeup.

Mario Kart sells like hotcakes; I doubt they'll have to do much to convince people to buy a new one, particularly folks who've played the old one for hundreds of hours.

Everyone has a new design, maybe I'm more familiar with my Marios than most but I could tell immediately it has a more cartoonish design, and characters have a rubbery kind of stretch and bounce to their animations. You can see it notably on the closeup of Mario where he hops into a drift.

The art style is somewhere between the 2010s bog-standard Mario and Super Mario Bros Wonder.

There would be a certain beauty in releasing Mario Kart 8 for the third console in a row.