Why Nintendo Switch 2 leaks are everywhere

It was expected that some details about the Nintendo Switch 2 would leak before it was revealed.

Details about upcoming gaming consoles always leak before their official announcement. Unlike a game in development, too many people outside the console’s parent company need to know about the device in advance to keep the secret: third-party publishers and developers, component suppliers, accessory manufacturers, retailers and the people in the factories. who make things. Somewhere in this vast chain someone will crack. Something’s going to come out.

Still, the situation with Switch 2 is currently extreme. (Even the name has been leaked.) Over the past few weeks we’ve seen a flurry of leaks, including clear photos of the final hardware. The dam has been breached to the point that peripheral manufacturer Genki, which claims to have acquired a real Switch 2 via backchannels, has thrown caution to the wind and showed off a mock-up of the console at CES. Genki even has a detailed, animated rendering of Nintendo’s new console on its website.

It was business as usual in Switch 2 leakland for most of last year. A few details emerged in reports from behind-closed-doors meetings with Nintendo’s partners, and a pretty complete, if vague, picture of the console’s shape and features emerged: the magnetic Joy-Cons, the AI supported upscaling technology, the backward compatibility.

Then the leaks accelerated in September. Molds, schematics, and hardware specs came from manufacturers in China that were detailed enough for one YouTuber to 3D print a mock-up of the new console. Since then, corroborating evidence has piled up to the point where only a handful of mysteries remain (mainly what the new button, extra USB-C port, and optical sensor are for). We even have a good idea of ​​the color schemes.

It’s an unprecedented amount of data on a console that hasn’t even been announced yet. What happened?

In all likelihood, it’s a simple matter of timing. Reports indicate that Nintendo originally planned to launch the Switch 2 in 2024but postponed it until 2025 to allow time to release new games and build up enough inventory to avoid inventory shortages. But this delay must have presented the company with a dilemma. If it were to announce the new console in 2024, it could have the knock-on effect of thwarting original Switch sales during the crucial holiday season.

This wasn’t a problem when Nintendo announced the original Switch with a video in October 2016: the Wii U was a sales blind and Nintendo was keen to move on. But the Switch is still selling in large numbers to this day, and it seems like Nintendo probably judged that announcing its next move wasn’t worth the potential revenue loss.

This strategy aligns with Nintendo’s choice to reveal one detail about Switch 2 before the holidays: that it would be backwards compatible, reassuring players that it was still worth buying Switch games.

Nintendo’s strategy caused preparations for Switch 2 to go in opposite directions. On the one hand, it apparently wanted a late announcement and a short promotional campaign to protect Switch sales. On the other hand, it reportedly wanted a long production lead-in before launch to build up a healthy amount of inventory. This resulted in an unusual situation: Nintendo was likely preparing for full production of Switch 2 for months before the console was even announced. What appear to be the final retail units have even started appearing in the wild – all before an announcement has been made.

So why hasn’t Nintendo – a famously secretive and litigious company – done that loves a takedown notice – everything seemed to be done to plug the leaks? This is essentially unknowable, and Nintendo will probably never say this. But it seems likely that Nintendo leadership was fully aware that leaks were an inevitable consequence of this launch strategy, and decided to accept them as the cost of doing business in this case.

The good news is that now that the holiday sales period is behind us, we can probably expect an announcement very soon. More than that: the Switch 2 is a tangible reality. It exists; it is being made now. That doesn’t necessarily mean the launch is imminent. But maybe it’s not that far away.