The Switch 2 has already sold 3.5 million units, making it Nintendo's fastest selling console yet—but I'm struggling to feel enthusiastic about this hardware launch
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
Just in case you've been living under a nice mossy rock, the Nintendo Switch 2 finally launched this time last week. Though it looks like the slightly taller, younger sibling of the original Switch, this successor boasts beefed up hardware capabilities—including a bespoke chip from Nvidia. Despite the obvious similarities at a glance and a launch lineup that didn't exactly have the wow-factor, the Switch 2's sales numbers are definitely worth a double take.
3.5 million—that's how many units the Switch 2 shifted in its first four days on sale according to Nintendo. The original Switch was a much slower burn comparatively, shifting 2.74 million units in its first month. Obviously that's still a whole lot of games consoles, and the original Switch still wears the crown for Nintendo's best-selling console, having shifted 152.12 million hardware units in total as of March 2025. Still, if it keeps up this pace, the Switch 2 could well be on its way to breaking that record all over again with swiftness.
So why, as a games and tech journalist, am I not excited about a whole new Nintendo console dropping this month—beyond the fact I write for a website called 'PC Gamer'? After setting up the Switch 2, navigating past the almost identical UI to boot up Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S, a thought dawned on me, "Oh no, have I really just spent $500 on the same console I bought in 2017?"
To be clear, I know the innards are different, with that chip from Nvidia definitely giving the Switch 2 a beefier edge; even if it isn't quite as revolutionary as Jensen Huang would like you to believe, I must admit I never thought I'd see Cyberpunk 2077 running on a Nintendo console. Besides this incredibly enthusiastic teardown exploring what makes the chip tick, our James wrote an excellent deep dive comparing the Switch 2's capabilities against the Steam Deck, and it's definitely a closer competition than I was expecting. Still, I can't ignore the feeling of how 'safe' this launch feels—or the huge success it has been met with despite largely more of the same.
Still, it's hard not to feel like this remains a 'safe' showing from Nintendo, with this successor Switch proudly declaring 'If it ain't broke…!' Speaking of, the more things change, the more they stay the same, with this iFixit teardown demonstrates that Nintendo are still soldering stuff directly to the motherboard. It also turns out that the Joy-Cons remain open to the dreaded stick drift. All of that makes the Switch 2 another handheld device that's far from easy to repair, but it finds itself in a somewhat less complacent tech landscape.
I mean, the thought of mountains of e-waste still keeps me up at night but I'm personally heartened by the EU's recent efforts to shore up consumer's 'right to repair.' Before that, both Oregon and California took similar steps stateside. Even big tech behemoth Apple is noticing the sea change, with the iPhone 16 being much easier to take apart and repair than its predecessor.
Nintendo, on the other hand, is still out here gluing down the battery—the part consumers are most likely to want to try replacing themselves—so steadfastly that folks risk introducing new faults to their console if they try to pry it out themselves. From a company that has pursued hefty settlements against Switch emulator devs or otherwise made offers that they can't refuse, this level of control is unsurprising. However, Nintendo's approach results in very much consumer unfriendly splash damage in a tech landscape where the ripples are more noticeable than ever.
Best handheld gaming PC: What's the best travel buddy?Steam Deck OLED review: Our verdict on Valve's handheld.Best Steam Deck accessories: Get decked out.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
‘Marathon' NDA Alpha Leaks Show Visual Improvements, Detail New Additions
Marathon I'm honestly a little surprised that we haven't seen more leaks out of the NDA-ed Marathon Alpha that's been running, but that's what the threat of legal action will do. It also signifies that maybe that's what Bungie should have done with the last Alpha, as originally planned, as we may have avoided that whole negative news cycle. This info is pulled from Twitter user @itsrocksiza, who says they have not signed an NDA themselves, but has access to information and (now deleted) images all the same somehow (a friend?). He says Bungie contacted him to delete the images, and while not legally required to do so, he did it to be nice. I did save them, but I'm not going to actually post them here for a similar reason. But I'll talk about what was shown. Marathon As I've always said, leaks aren't leaks when they're positive! I mean, not really, and you all should not break your NDAs, but here we are, and all of this sounds like improvements from the last public Alpha, and relatively quick changes being made/tested. This is obviously not everything. Bungie said there will be further tests before release, though what the mix of NDA-ed and invite-only and eventually public tests will be is not confirmed. Bungie has not given a new Marathon release date, but says it will this fall. It's likely to be before the end of the 2025 fiscal year which ends in March. We'll see just how many changes and additions Marathon can get before that release, and if they might change its fortunes. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Loop Capital Says NVIDIA (NVDA) Is Entering a ‘Golden Wave' of Gen AI
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:) is one of the . On June 25, Nvidia stock hit a record high to reclaim the title of being the 'world's most valuable company'. On that note, Loop Capital has deemed that the chipmaker is set to ride a 'Golden Wave' of artificial intelligence. The firm lifted its price target for the stock to $250 from $175, while maintaining its 'Buy' rating. 'Our work suggests we are entering the next 'Golden Wave' of Gen AI adoption and NVDA is at the front-end of another material leg of stronger than anticipated demand.' -Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah. In a research note, the analyst told investors how their work on the supply chain suggests that hyperscale and AI factory Gen AI and AI accelerator compute spending 'alone' could accelerate to about $2T by 2028 using current compute economics. While Loop understands that this implies a $6T market cap for Nvidia, it contends that 'the math just works' as the market enters the next 'golden wave' of Gen AI. While we acknowledge the potential of NVDA as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 10 AI Stocks in the Spotlight and . Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CNET
2 hours ago
- CNET
Death Stranding 2 Ending Explained: What Happened to Lou, Neil Vana and BB-28?
Death Stranding 2's release date was Thursday but some players who bought a special edition of the game have already been playing it for two days. As it takes 30 to 40 hours to finish the game, some will see the ending and wonder what in the world they just experienced. Death Stranding 2 comes from the mind of Hideo Kojima and he can be a little eccentric with his video games. This game is peak creativity from the legendary game developer but it's not easy to follow what happened, even when you've finished his game. Spoiler warning: If you haven't beaten Death Stranding 2 yet, don't read any further. If you've finished the game and are still scratching your head, keep on reading. Now Playing: Unboxing the Death Stranding 2 PS5 Controller 00:45 What happened with Lou? Early in the game, Fragile is holding Lou when Higgs shoots at her. When she comes to, she tells Sam that Lou is gone. We see a month later that Sam is searching for Lou and finds her, yet this is clearly not Lou -- it's a dream. Sam continues to carry around Lou's BB pod as if Lou is still a baby with him. He'll hear Lou cry, he can comfort her and all the other actions he was able to do in the first game. Toward the end, we learn a couple of things. First, Lou was Sam's daughter with Lucy, Sam's therapist, who is briefly shown in the first game. Second, the Lou that Sam has been carrying appears to be just a delusion of his that the Magallan crew has seemingly just gone along with. All those abilities that BBs can do, such as scanning for BTs, were done by Dollman. Lastly, Tomorrow is Sam's daughter, in other words, Lou. So, in the final battle with Higgs, instead of ending the world, Tomorrow, aka Lou, ends up helping take out Higgs in the most adorable way. She is brought over from the other side and it looks like she might be the star of her own Death Stranding game or maybe some DLC as a new porter. Who was Neil Vana? Neil Vana was a smuggler who worked similarly to Sam's, but instead of a package of whatever, he delivered brain-dead pregnant women whose babies would be sacrificed to the Bridges project and become BBs. His sections of Death Stranding 2 act similarly to the scenes featuring Cliff from the first game, in that they are segments that provide some background to the story while also just letting players stop thinking about packages and just do some shooting. During these sections, Neil wears an outfit similar to Solid Snake from the Metal Gear series, one of many references to Kojima's famous series found throughout the sequel. Each segment featuring Neil represents a particular strong memory that Sam experiences, unlike the quick glimpses of the past Sam gets whenever he plugs himself into Lou's BB pod. When Neil was a child, the Mexican town he was in was being inundated with BTs, causing havoc. He had met a young girl who helped him, but when she was trapped, he tried to help her, leaving a scar on his and her hands. Years later, when he sought a therapist to help him deal with his troubling work, he met Lucy Strand. Lucy is the sister of Bridget Strand, the President of the United Cities of America, and she was also Sam's therapist. Lucy and Sam fell in love, and she was pregnant with his child. In the first Death Stranding, the story given to Sam was that Lucy committed suicide. That appears not to be the case. It seems that Lucy was approached to give up her baby to Bridges, likely because of Sam being the father. She sought the help of Neil to smuggle her into Mexico. Neil thought Lucy was having his baby but she did make it clear that the baby wasn't his. Nevertheless, he was not going to abandon her this time around, so he made arrangements to sneak her out of the country. Those efforts became futile as Neil and Lucy were shot by the Bridges guards. Lou was taken out of Lucy to be used as a BB, with her body left on a medical table waiting for Sam to show up. While Neil did die, he didn't cross over, thus becoming a BT. The doctors who were seemingly going to examine his body mentioned the need for corpse disposal as Neil's soul, his ka, had left the body. While a BT would normally go to whatever person is near, Neil instead floats to Lucy's dead body. Here's when we see Sam show up and break down with his love dead and his child seemingly gone. Neil follows Sam, and whether it was done on purpose or was just the nature of being a BT, Neil makes contact with Sam, causing a voidout and destroying the city. This event caused Sam to retire from Bridges and develop his aphenphosmphobia, the fear of being touched. Neil's final fight with Sam was enough to finally let his soul be at peace. Kojima Productions/Screenshot by CNET What's the mystery of BB-28? At the start of his mission in the first Death Stranding, Sam comes across a BB that was supposed to be destroyed. For some reason, he decides against it and takes on BB-28 as his own. He formed a bond with the BB, and after a successful mission, he left for Mexico to raise the baby as Lou. Throughout Death Stranding 2, there's a mystery regarding the origins of BB-28. What eventually comes out is that BB-28 wasn't the 28th baby to be used by Bridges. It was actually the first, BB-00. However, there had been some secretive moves to seemingly erase Lou from the system. This resulted in Lou being in storage for 11 years and given the BB-28 designation. The most likely reason for this was to hide the details about where the baby came from and who the mother was. It's also likely that the person who brought Lou out of storage to be used again was the President, who knew Lou was Sam's daughter, and to possibly unite them when he came out of retirement. Who is The President? At the start of the game, Sam meets the President of the Automated Public Assistance Company or APAC. The company is bankrolling Draw Bridges and Sam's effort to connect Australia to the Chiral Network. APAC also owns APAS, a system used throughout the game to improve Sam's performance and skills. Toward the end of the game, The President confides in Sam through a private channel that he believes there is someone working against them. He tells Sam not to inform the others. It ends up that The President, however, is not to be trusted, and he wasn't real in the first place. The President, who has been working with Sam, is just another robot controlled by an entity referred to as APAS 4000. Sometime in the past, there was a voidout that killed 4,000 people and these souls somehow converged with the APAS AI system that handled deliveries. The APAS 4000 then went about concocting a plan to make humans into souls that would be trapped in the world of the dead. APAS 4000 views this as reclaiming the world before there was a Death Stranding, but it would ultimately kill all humans. Higgs is back. Kojima Productions/Screenshot by CNET What is Higgs up to? Higgs continues to want to see the world destroyed. He said he has been alone for tens of thousands of years on the Beach after being given the choice to stay by Fragile at the end of the first game. Then APAS 4000 brought him back from the Beach to have him compel Sam to work with Draw Bridges and connect Australia. They even provided him with a Ghost Mech army. Higgs, however, had plans of his own. His ultimate plan was to do the Last Stranding, an event where everyone would die and humans would go extinct. This is what Sam prevented in the first Death Stranding game, but with Tomorrow, Higgs could try again because she is an extinction entity, which is a being that will bring out an extinction event. He ultimately failed at his plan and was killed when Lou, in a giant baby form, ate him. What's with Die Hardman's dance? It's Kojima. Just go with it. Death Stranding 2 is out now, exclusive for the PS5 and costs $70.
