Back in 2016, after the Nintendo Switch had been announced, I wrote an article titled Five Things To Consider For The Nintendo Switch. In hindsight, I was pretty far off the mark about a few things—can you believe I thought the Switch might not have a touchscreen—but I was pretty close about a few things, namely how wide Nintendo would open the floodgates for people to publish on their console and the then rumoured Nintendo Switch Online.
Recently, with the rampant amount of “leaks” in relation to the Nintendo Switch successor, I’ve once again found myself thinking about what Nintendo’s next system may or may not have. Since Nintendo has given themselves a pretty solid foundation upon which to build the “Nintendo Switch 2,” rather than craft a list of things to consider for the next console, I’ve decided to come up with things I believe the Nintendo Switch 2 either should or needs to have in order to elevate the experience. With that in mind, here is our list of the Five Things The Nintendo Switch 2 Should or Needs to Have.
Improved Social Features
One of the truly under-appreciated things both the 3DS and the Wii U had was its unique social features, namely Streetpass and the Miiverse. For those who may not remember, the 3DS utilized NFC to allow owners to interact with each other while in sleep mode. If players happened to pass by each other on the street, they could send data to each other in a number of fun ways. The Miiverse by contrast, was a dedicated social hub where players could post text or drawings about various games.
And while the Switch aimed to be more connected to players via mobile and social media, it’s really no secret that the two ways they allowed players to do that: posting directly to Facebook and Twitter—have devolved into smouldering garbage fires—in fact, players can’t even post to Twitter anymore. The Nintendo Switch 2 really needs to abandon this kind of social integration and go back to what made Nintendo the fun, quirky company it always was, by returning to in-house socialization.
The Switch already has NFC functionality, so there’s no reason something Streetpass wouldn’t be a welcome addition to the portable console. There really was something special about receiving a gift, or even a small notification that you crossed paths with a fellow gamer without even knowing it. And while it wasn’t always perfect, the Miiverse was certainly more contained and more focused on sharing a love of video games—although it sometimes got a lot more weird and wacky.
More Personality
The Switch interface is boring, we can all agree on that right? A flat white (or black if you’re feeling saucy) screen, with a linear line of games—and we all know how much Nintendo loves arranging things in lines. Compared to the Wii, Wii U and 3DS, all of which had really dynamic Home screens and a unique musical ambience, the Switch is kind of dull which feels really uncharacteristic for Nintendo.
The Switch successor really needs to re-inject the Home screen with some life and personality. Nintendo’s whole deal is about celebrating the fun and wonder of video games and their systems should really reflect that. At the very least, the next system should borrow an idea from the 3DS and include multiple game-based themes to make the system feel more personal to each user. Even the Badge Arcade would be a fun idea if it wasn’t attached to real-money Gatcha mechanics.
Better Main Menu
The Switch 2 not only needs to make the system feel more dynamic and unique, it REALLY needs to fix that Home Screen. I made the joke about arranging things in lines, but it’s honestly a problem not just the Switch has—even the PS4 and PS5 suffer from this unintuitive design. The main reason I really hate this kind of layout is, that every new game you play pushes an old one further down the line until it’s out of the main rotation, and you completely forget about it.
At the very least, the PS5 allows you to pin games to the Home Screen, but I think the Switch should go beyond that by going back to the way things used to be. The way the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS allowed you to have a customizable grid for all your games made it feel much more organized and personal. The 3DS even had folders which was a little inelegant, but it made sorting games and keeping them in view a breeze.
In fact, the 3DS allowed you to customize how many grid squares were even on-screen so you didn’t have a lot of downloaded games, you could still sort them with ease. And it’s not just that it would make the Nintendo Switch 2’s UI much more user-friendly, it’s just the fact that these are such basic features to have that it would come across as incredibly amateurish to not have. At the very least let us pin games to the Home screen, so I remember to pop into Animal Crossing: New Horizons every couple of days.
Better Use of the Hardware
When Nintendo had its Nintendo Switch Presentation back in 2017, I was genuinely amazed by the potential the hardware may have provided. When Koizumi was playfully showing off the Joy-Cons and the impressive HD Rumble, I thought for sure this was going to add a new layer to gaming. In truth, it didn’t and outside a handful of Nintendo games, no one has really taken advantage of the system’s hardware—did you even realize that the Home button has an LED behind it?
“Honestly, what I hope the Nintendo Switch 2 would do—though I know it’s a long shot—is allow Switch games to access the improved hardware for a better experience.”
Barely any games take advantage of the gyroscope in any meaningful way, HD Rumble is scarcely utilized, and almost no games use the touch screen—especially ones you’d really think would—to the point where I honestly forget the Switch even has one. We don’t really know whether the Joy-Con 2.0 will have haptic feedback or any other expanded features, but does the Nintendo Switch 2 really need them? Most third-party developers don’t seem interested in using them, I say axe them and free up processing power for the system itself.
Honestly, what I hope the Nintendo Switch 2 would do—though I know it’s a long shot—is allow Switch games to access the improved hardware for a better experience. Imagine playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at a consistent frame rate, or not having Animal Crossing: New Horizons drop to 10fps when you have one item too many on your island.
Bring the eShop to the Modern Day
This might not be something that is limited to the Nintendo Switch 2 itself, but since almost every recent Nintendo console has had its own bespoke storefront, I’m going to consider it as something the next Switch needs to do. The Nintendo Switch eShop is an absolute joke. It seemingly runs on Web 1.0—taking actual hours to load basic menus—and it lacks basic features like a shopping cart.
Not only that, but Nintendo opened the floodgates so wide that the eShop basically became the Steam Greenlight—allowing all manner of asset flips, AI-generated “visual novels,” and a similar avalanche of garbage on the shop, burying any potentially decent games. The next version of the eShop really needs to be brought up to par with modern-day stores and that means not only implementing basic features but also doing some diligent quality control, so the Coming Soon section doesn’t feature the newest Super Mario beside three different “visual novels” with the word Hentai in the title.
We don’t have any solid news or release dates for the Nintendo Switch 2 yet, but hopefully we will see some of these features on the new device when it launches.
