It’s pretty much an open secret at this point that Nintendo has a pretty big — around 8in or so — secret up its sleeve for 2024. If the incessant rumour-mongering of a Switch 2, Switch Pro or Ultra Max (or whatever it’s called) weren’t enough of a hint, leaker Nate The Hate reckons the Tears of the Kingdom publisher has something waiting in the wings for March. (That something is the Switch 2 if we hadn’t made that obvious.)
Switch 2, Electric Boogaloo
He said as much on his recent podcast and later in this one, where he sounded a little more confident that… “Nintendo will announce the Switch 2 in March,” he said. “Everything I’m hearing dating back to Gamescom last year has indicated something was happening in March. That talk has resurfaced in the past few weeks, and it is indicating that the Switch 2 is set for a reveal or an announcement in March.”
Nate is referring to 2023’s Gamescom, when the air was still thick with speculation around Nintendo’s rumoured behind-closed-doors demo of the new hardware. A beefed-up Breath of the Wild with a “higher framerate and resolution than the original game…” was reportedly on display, though nothing more ever came out of the news. Until now.
He also made note of a Nintendo Direct taking place sometime next week, though it’ll place a larger focus on the Japanese company’s third-party titles, and won’t have anything to do with the Switch successor. If both the rumours of a Direct and a March event are true, don’t expect anything big to come out of next week’s Direct. We doubt Nintendo would want to waste anything on what’s technically last-gen hardware.
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Adding more fuel to the fire, Nate The Hate’s story was corroborated by ‘Necro’ Felipe Lima through Universo Nintendo and later on Famiboards – “I can corroborate independently on Nate’s claim of March as a reveal month for Switch 2.” This is according to Lima’s “sources”, who believe that several developers in the know are also gearing up to unveil their projects once the console’s existence is out in the open.
Considering Nate The Hate and Lima’s track record regarding leaks in the past, we’re inclined to believe them this time around. Nintendo strikes us as the nostalgic type, and what better time to unveil new hardware around the original Switch’s 3 March birthday? Remember, this is the same company that cancelled a Zelda series because Netflix leaked it. Keep those expectations on the low end until Nintendo confirms the Switch 2 itself.