Months later, the Tokyo-Akihabara stores continue to stack Switch 2 boxes close to the front window in the same manner that bakeries showcase freshly baked goods, as though the console were a perishable item that might become outdated by Tuesday. It hasn’t. Parents, salarymen on lunch break, and the occasional foreign visitor attempting to figure out the local prices are still in line outside Bic Camera on a Saturday afternoon, nearly a year after the company’s launch. The whole thing has a subtle stubbornness to it. The Switch 2 isn’t meant to be this popular, at least not in comparison to the wall of more powerful handheld PCs that debuted this year and threatened to overtake it.
And yet, here we are. According to reports this week, Nintendo has secretly instructed its manufacturing partners to prepare about 20 million units for the fiscal year, which is about 20% more than its public guidance. The console is selling more units than Nintendo’s own cautious projections indicated. That is not how a business would act if they were hoping for a slowdown. It’s the actions of a business that has knowledge that the rest of us are still trying to figure out.
One piece of silicon holds the key, if you can call it that. Nearly every intriguing aspect of the Switch 2 stems from its unique Nvidia chip, the T239, an octa-core ARM-based processor. It shouldn’t be able to compete on paper. The price of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is approximately $1,000. The Legion Go 2 surpasses $1,350. With more RAM, better screens, and the brute-force advantage of x86 architecture that makes porting PC games easy, both run AMD silicon made specifically for this form factor. In contrast, the Switch 2 appears to be underpowered. In the strict sense of the specification sheet, it is underpowered.
The problem is that spec sheets don’t accurately reflect how games feel in your hands. It’s a small revelation to watch Cyberpunk 2077 run on the Switch 2, not because it looks better than it does on a Legion Go, but rather because it looks about as good while using a fraction of the power and costing less than half. The secret is Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling technology, or DLSS, which has been subtly changing PC gaming for years. It creates an image that, in motion, is largely indistinguishable from native by rendering frames at a lower resolution and then using machine learning to fill in the blanks. That’s not a luxury on a handheld with constrained thermal headroom; it’s the whole point.
Developers believe that porting to the Switch 2 is more difficult than porting to the Xbox or PlayStation, which are essentially PCs covered in dark plastic. The architecture of ARM is unique. However, the optimization is maintained once the work is completed. Older Switch games can now operate at docked-mode performance even when undocked thanks to Nintendo’s “Handheld Mode Boost,” which was added in a system update earlier this year. This tiny toggle subtly increased performance from the same chip, suggesting that Nintendo hasn’t yet shown us headroom.
The historical parallel is difficult to ignore. Nintendo has been in this situation before, winning by placing a wager on less expensive, more bizarre hardware against competitors vying for raw power. It was accomplished by the Wii. It was done by the DS. The most well-known example of this was the original Switch. Every time the consensus claimed that the hardware was too modest, it was incorrect because it continued to measure the incorrect thing.
The timing is what sets this round apart. Globally, memory costs are rising, and Nintendo recently announced a $50 price increase that will go into effect in September. The share price fell following the announcement, which did not sit well with investors. However, the math is harsh: every other handheld on the market will likely increase in price more quickly. You’ve essentially pre-ordered an entire holiday season that no one else can match if you can maintain a margin while producing 20 million units.
The unannounced games have not yet been made public. There has been no confirmation of the rumored Ocarina of Time remake. There is still conjecture surrounding the June Direct. However, the chip is already in the box, working quietly, and that could prove to be the most significant choice Nintendo has made in ten years.
