Reports have indicated that a Nintendo Switch 2 announcement may be close, as internal emails from Activision revealed meetings with Nintendo.
There has been a lot of buzz around the development and testing of the so-called “Nintendo Switch 2.” The last update came from last month’s news on developer demos at Gamescom. However, recent court documents from the Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft/Activision Blizzard acquisition case revealed some internal emails that pointed to meetings between Activision and Nintendo executives.
The redacted emails proved that CEO Bobby Kotick met with Nintendo execs in December 2022 to discuss the next-gen Switch. The summary doc was labelled “NG Switch Draft.pdf” along with another PDF called “Nintendo_Exec_Summary.pdf.” The internal email chain also included the head of Activision’s platform strategy and partner relations, Chris Schnakenberg.
While much of the document was redacted, it unveiled that the performance of the Nintendo Switch 2 will be closer to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The document read: “Given the closer alignment to Gen8 platforms in terms of performance and our previous offerings on PS4 / Xbox One, it is reasonable to assume we could make something compelling for the NG Switch as well. It would be helpful to secure early access to development hardware prototypes and prove that out nice and early.”
Following up to this email, Kotick met with Nintendo CEO and president Shuntaro Furukawa on December 15. Kotick mentioned in his testimony in the FTC case that he regretted not bringing Call of Duty to the Switch. This line of questioning on Call of Duty and the Switch opened up a whole conversation that eventually led to the fact drop. The FTC case revealed that Microsoft signed an agreement with Nintendo to bring a future Call of Duty game to a future Nintendo console should Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal be approved by regulators.
Many reports, like the ones at VGC and Eurogamer, have already been speculating that the Nintendo Switch 2 should have a planned release date by 2024. Based on the gaming demos at Gamescom and other corroborated reports, the new console was said to have an LCD screen instead of an OLED and continue to support cartridge slots for playing physical releases of games.
More reports even pointed out that an updated version of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was tested and designed to run on the more advanced hardware with the Nintendo Switch 2. There were also claims that Nintendo showcased Epic Games’ The Matrix Awakens on the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo, which was running on the new Nintendo hardware they are planning to bring to the Nintendo Switch 2.
The demo was said to be using NVIDIA’s DLSS upscaling technology with ray tracing enabled, meaning the chip inside the next Switch should be capable of running the latest AAA games. While none of these details have clearly shown a close to the final build of a next-gen Switch, more may be revealed at future tech demos.
