Switch 2 launch could be "significantly bigger" than the OG Switch's, but only if Nintendo can keep up: "When in history [...] did a launch for a popular new console go smoothly?"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
We're fast approaching the launch of the Switch 2, and despite cries to "drop the price," pre-orders have been selling out around the world. Some analysts are already expecting a "significantly bigger" launch than what we saw with the OG Switch, but it all hinges on one key factor: supply.
Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japan games industry consultancy Kantan Games, is one analyst who's expecting a "significantly" larger release for the console compared to the Switch 1. Speaking to GamesRadar+, he says that "the initial momentum for Switch 2 vs 1 is like night and day," pointing out that in 2017, Nintendo had "just suffered from the massive failure with the Wii U," meaning that "not too many people took the Switch seriously."
With the Switch 2, he expects the console "will be not only sold out at launch (a banality) but also hard to get for weeks or perhaps even months after." He adds: "Sorry, but we as an industry have seen so many console launches now: When in the history of the video gaming business did a launch for a popular new console go smoothly?"
He continues: "I hope I am wrong and I understand Nintendo will try their best, but I would be very surprised if you can just walk into a store and buy a Switch 2 before late summer at the earliest."
This sentiment is echoed by David Cole, CEO of research and consulting firm DFC Intelligence. He tells us that "the main issue is whether Nintendo can meet initial demand, and then continue to have enough units available this fall and into the holiday season," noting that "supply shortages could be a major issue in coming months."
Games industry researcher Joost van Dreunen, who writes the SuperJoost Playlist and teaches at NYU Stern School of Business, also believes that "acquiring a Switch 2 at launch will likely be challenging." He adds: "I anticipate stock shortages to persist through the holiday season and potentially into Q1 2026. The current global trade situation and tariff uncertainties have likely prompted Nintendo to be even more cautious with their manufacturing and distribution strategies."
Mat Piscatella, games industry analyst at Circana, reiterates "the success of the launch will depend on how many units will be available," noting: "Demand will likely be there globally, but that doesn't mean the units necessarily will be."
If Nintendo is able to supply enough consoles, "I don't see why the launch of Switch 2 should not be bigger than the original Switch," he explains.
The console's price and announced Nintendo Switch 2 launch games apparently don't matter too much in the immediate future, either, as he suggests: "Pricing and available games becomes much more important once we get outside the launch window, and we move away from the price insensitive Nintendo hyper-enthusiast day-one buyers more towards general gaming enthusiasts."
Nintendo has predicted that it'll sell 15 million Switch 2 consoles in its first year, as well as 45 million games, but has already indicated that the demand for the device has exceeded its expectations. Let's just hope everyone who really wants one doesn't have to wait too long at the console's release.
Keeping up with all the Nintendo Switch 2 news? Be sure to check out our roundup of upcoming Switch 2 games, too.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNET
2 hours ago
- CNET
Best Handheld Gaming Consoles Right Now
Phones and tablets already do a fine job of playing tons of great games and streaming games from consoles or the cloud. Dedicated devices can provide unique features, exclusive games or extra power to do things your phone can't. The difference between types of game handhelds at the moment can feel vast, but let's break it down into some clear categories. Handhelds can be full TV-connectable consoles, tinier versions of full PCs, or smaller, purpose-built ways to play retro games, indies, or even novelty experiences. Some are, like PCs and phones, built on more standard OS forms. Others are locked down. The Nintendo Switch 2. Scott Stein/CNET The Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 Nintendo's consoles are a platform all unto their own. Nintendo locks down its hardware to only work with games bought in physical game card format or on Nintendo's eShop, and the Switch and Switch 2 also require subscriptions for online play. The Switch 2 can play nearly all the games that work on the Switch, with the exception of ones that either needed the original Switch dimensions (Nintendo Labo, if you can find it) or the original Joy-Con's IR camera (Ring Fit Adventure, which works with Switch 2 if you pair original Joy-Cons to it wirelessly). It does have its own accessories and added functions: GameChat for talking to other Switch 2 owners, USB-connected camera support for games and chat, and the new Joy-Cons can work as optical mice with supported games. It works the same way the Switch does, but has better graphics and a larger screen, and worse battery life. To expand Switch 2 storage, you need to buy microSD Express cards, which are different from standard microSD. Lori Grunin/CNET PC game handhelds A growing number of beefy handheld systems can run either full Windows OS onboard, or specific Linux-based SteamOS software. The Steam Deck, Asus Rog Ally and Lenovo Legion Go are the best current options and come in several forms and flavors. Most of these handhelds run similar-performing types of AMD-based processors with integrated graphics which deliver surprising functional gaming on the go provided the games you're playing are properly optimized. Valve makes this super easy on Steam Deck and on the new Lenovo Legion Go S with Steam OS, making it very clear on its Steam store which games are optimized to play well. On Windows handhelds, you gain the freedom of full Windows OS, and its complications. You could run any game from any source (and on SteamOS handhelds, with some tinkering, you could do this too), but your mileage will definitely vary. I've often had some games not run at all, or run so badly they were unplayable. Indie and smaller games are often great choices on handhelds for this reason. Still, games like Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Spider-Man 2 and No Man's Sky are a few of the games that are great to play on the go with these handhelds. Expect battery life to vary based on the type of game, and many of these handhelds are pretty heavy, too (up to 1.5 pounds). They can connect with monitors and accessories, too, but don't come packaged with docks. The ModRetro Chromatic. Numi Prasarn/CNET Retro handhelds The Analogue Pocket and ModRetro Chromatic are remastered Game Boys for playing classic cartridges you might still have or buy. The Pocket can also play other game cartridges, and even emulations of games that can be sideloaded. The Evercade series of handhelds, alternatively, plays rereleased compilations of games on custom cartridges. While the Pocket and Chromatic and Evercade models are geared towards physical cartridges, there are also tons of small handhelds that can play ROMs and emulated games. CNET doesn't review those at the moment, but know that there's a big space there to explore. There's also the weird stuff: the Panic Playdate is its own beast, a custom mini-handheld that plays its own library of games. There's nothing else quite like it, but Nintendo's limited edition Game & Watch re-releases come to mind. The PlayStation Portal. Scott Stein/CNET Streaming handhelds While Windows handhelds can stream games from sources like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now, so can your phone or tablet. Another streaming option to consider is the PlayStation Portal, which only plays either PlayStation Plus streaming cloud games or streaming games via your PlayStation 5, but also adds haptics and force-feedback triggers. The future of gaming might be increasingly streaming, but for now, it's a tool that lots of devices are throwing in the mix. The Backbone Pro controller on an iPhone. Lori Grunin/CNET Your phone, or tablet Tablets and phones are extremely valid game consoles: The iPad has tons of games on the App Store, and hundreds more on Apple's subscription-based Apple Arcade. The iPad can pair with Bluetooth game controllers, too. iPhones and Android phones have tons of games as well, obviously, and a number of great game controller cases are available, including the Backbone and the Razer Kishi. Phones and tablets also offer other advantages, including an ability to cloud-stream games on a growing number of services including Microsoft Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus.
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Forbes
What's Holding Back Sustainable Business? The Challenges That Matter Most
The race to a sustainable future is on In the next five years, an entire generation of 2030 sustainability goals will finally come due. ESG reports and shareholder letters alike are soon going to face their biggest reckoning yet: will all the lofty promises translate into real progress? Early signs suggest the answer will be sobering. While ambition has soared, actual outcomes have continued to lag stubbornly behind. The reality is not that business leaders lack the will, rather, it's that the pathways to sustainability are far murkier, slower, and more difficult than anyone knew, or perhaps wanted to admit. For many organizations, the past few years have revealed a brutal truth: good intentions alone are not enough. Across industries, leaders are confronting the growing reality that sustainable business challenges run deeper than public promises and ESG reports might suggest. Without the right goals, infrastructure, and incentives, sustainability efforts either stall or end up serving more as marketing than meaning. The subtle forces working against sustainability are often invisible at first: misaligned incentives, fragile infrastructure, and underpriced risk. It's time we look at them more clearly if we want to build companies that can genuinely claim to have moved the world forward. The Importance of Aligning Goals With Real-World Sustainability Execution At the heart of any real change is leadership that understands both the limits of today and the possibilities of tomorrow. Kenn Ricci, founder of Flexjet, is an executive who strives to embody both while also running a business in one of the more challenging industries to be sustainable in, aviation. As he explains it, Ricci's sustainability philosophy doesn't fall into the trap of setting goals that look good but collapse under operational scrutiny. Instead, he focuses on what could become possible with enough pressure and patience, and then works to build the conditions to achieve it, whether it is to further sustainability across his fleet of jets or simply managing the day-to-day operations at the back office. 'When you lead people, you can't just say, 'This is where we're going,'' Ricci explains. 'You have to build a path under their feet, step by step, that makes it believable and doable. Otherwise, it's just a dream. Worse yet, it might be just your dream, and never become theirs.' At Flexjet, Ricci has consistently pursued operational improvements that align with larger sustainability aims, but without forcing the business to lurch into goals it cannot yet support. He argues that trust, not slogans, is what sustains long-term change. 'Sustainability isn't a checkbox even if some still treat it as such,' Ricci continues. 'It's an ongoing negotiation between ambition and reality. The leaders who win are the ones who never let go of either side.' His pragmatic optimism stands in stark contrast to much of the corporate world, where sustainability targets are often designed by communications departments rather than operational leaders. And herein lies the first reason why we haven't seen as much progress on ESG goals as we would have wanted. For far too many companies, sustainability has not been a metric that they have actively led with themselves. Ricci puts it bluntly: 'Sustainability has to be a steering wheel, not a rearview mirror. If you're just reporting it, you're already too late. And the leaders have to be the ones with both hands on it, not just the sustainability or comms team.' He's also keenly aware that true leadership requires putting real capital behind sustainable change, not just political or reputational capital, but operational resources that can withstand market cycles. 'Anyone can make promises when the sun is shining,' Ricci says. 'The question is what you stick to when the headwinds come. That's where real commitment shows.' Why Sustainability Depends on Infrastructure: Lessons From Aviation and Energy If setting the right goals is the first battle, building the right infrastructure is the war. Kennedy Ricci, CEO of 4AIR and son of Kenn Ricci, has spent his career focusing precisely on this frontier. His company offers a certification program for aviation's environmental impact, not by promising zero emissions tomorrow, but by helping aviation stakeholders take verifiable, incremental steps today. 'A lot of people get paralyzed because they think the only good goal is net-zero tomorrow,' Kennedy Ricci explains. 'But if you can measure, track, and improve a little bit every day, that's how you actually get there.' 4AIR's approach doesn't pretend aviation can become clean overnight. Instead, it recognizes that building credibility today through offset programs, sustainable aviation fuels, and transparent reporting lays the groundwork for deeper decarbonization later. The company's rise is testament to the power of pragmatic ambition anchored by real-world execution. Kenn Ricci reflects on his son's growing success: 'Building an empire is one thing. Building a legacy that adapts to the future is something else entirely. I'm proud that Kennedy's taking on the harder challenge.' He continues, "We've always believed that real leadership isn't about announcing goals, it's about laying bricks, patiently, and getting others to walk the road with you. 4AIR is doing just that." Meanwhile, infrastructure challenges aren't limited to aviation. The broader energy ecosystem faces its own existential bottlenecks that a handful of companies are doing their best to break open for the rest of us. Deóis Ua Cearnaigh, CTO at Aeon Blue, a company specializing in energy transition technologies and sustainable fuel, emphasizes that sustainability isn't about simply adding more renewables into the grid. It's about fundamentally rethinking how the grid operates. 'It's wonderful that we have more wind and solar now,' says Cearnaigh. 'But you still need a spinning reserve for when the wind dies and the sun sets. If that reserve is fossil-powered, your emissions story isn't as clean as it looks.' Their bigger point is this: you can't just add renewables on top of a fragile or misaligned system and expect magic. Without reengineering grid storage, reserve capacity, and distribution models, the true sustainability gains remain elusive. Cearnaigh believes that while renewables will dominate the next twenty years, nuclear energy will inevitably rise as the long-term backbone for sustainable baseload power. 'The zeitgeist today is wind, solar, and geothermal,' he reflects. 'But it does also seem that nuclear is one inevitable destination as well.' Without grappling with these infrastructural realities, sustainability risks becoming a story we tell ourselves, not a future we actually live. This mindset mirrors the thinking of Brett Bouchy, CEO of Freedom Forever, a company deadset on revolutionizing residential solar. 'The solar revolution doesn't happen because people feel good about the environment,' Bouchy points out. 'It happens when saving money on your electricity bill is cheaper and easier than sticking to the grid.' Bouchy's laser focus on efficiency is another reminder that for sustainability to scale, it must compete not just morally, but economically. As Bouchy frames it, "We don't succeed by selling dreams. We succeed by selling better economics. And better economics drive real environmental change." He's blunt about the reality check the green economy still needs: "Nobody switches to solar because you guilt them into it. They switch because it's cheaper, easier, and works better. That's how you win hearts, wallets, and the future. And for that, you need the infrastructure to be in place, management to know what goals to drive towards, and an audience that is ready to trust what you are selling." Bouchy also sees a deeper, long-term opportunity that transcends energy bills: "Every home we upgrade is a client win, sure. But it's another node in a smarter, decentralized energy system. Sustainability isn't a utopian idea. It's the byproduct of millions of small, self-interested decisions that add up to a revolution." If only revolutions were easy, which is exactly why stories like the above are worthy of retelling. Companies that rise up to the challenge of sustainability cannot be taken for granted, simply because of how rare they still remain. That is particularly true for investments, which is the third missing pillar that is making 2030 feel further away than it should. Why Long-Term Investment Is the Missing Piece in Sustainability Strategy If setting the right goals is the first battle, and building the right infrastructure is the war, then making the right investments is the long campaign, often fought without fanfare, headlines, or even immediate returns. And it's here where sustainable business faces one of its most persistent barriers: the cruel mismatch between moral urgency and financial immediacy. Capital, by its nature, seeks returns. It rewards speed, liquidity, and demonstrable gains. But sustainability often demands patience, long arcs of investment, and a willingness to fund seeds that may only bear fruit decades from now. It asks us to invest in forests we may never personally walk through. Doing good, it turns out, is relatively easy. But doing good money, investments that compete at par with traditional, short-horizon opportunities, remains the real Everest to climb. This doesn't mean that the private sector is full of villains twirling their overgrown mustaches. It's simply important to recognize the system we've built and how it operates. Until the returns of sustainability become structurally competitive, whether through market shifts, regulatory frameworks, or pure innovation, capital will continue to flow where it always has: toward the short, the sure, the profitable and the now. The uncomfortable truth is that economics, not ethics, will be the final arbiter of the transition's speed, even if ethics gets to set the goal. And yet, there are signs of things shifting. Signs that smart leaders know: a world where customers demand sustainable products is fast approaching. A world where supply chains simply cannot function without green tech is not far behind. Companies who wait until the economics are easy will find that the customers, the talent, and the licenses to operate have already gone elsewhere. Which brings us to the handful of players quietly laying the groundwork. ENEOS, Japan's largest energy group, offers one instructive case. They are investing heavily in hydrogen transportation, synthetic fuels, battery recycling, and carbon capture, not because it makes perfect financial sense today, but because they know what survival will require tomorrow. 'There's no question the world needs cleaner energy,' an ENEOS representative explained in an interview. 'But if you exit fossil fuels too quickly, you leave markets in chaos, and ironically, you can make the transition slower, not faster.' The trick, as they frame it, is not to burn the bridges while crossing the river. Real transition demands continuity, not collapse. "You can't dismantle today's infrastructure before tomorrow's infrastructure is ready," added another ENEOS representative noted. 'The world is too interconnected for idealism alone. You need to build pathways people can actually walk.' This recognition, that reality, not rhetoric, is the substrate upon which change must be built, permeates the thinking of those who are keen to see sustainability truly take root today. Brett Bouchy, CEO of Freedom Forever, who is busy scaling residential solar across America, frames it in plain terms: 'You don't win by selling dreams. You win by selling better economics. If going solar isn't easier and cheaper than sticking with the grid, the revolution doesn't happen. Period.' It's a bracing, necessary reminder that narratives alone don't move markets. Incentives do. And this brings us full circle to the real challenge ahead: building an economy where sustainability isn't a premium add-on for the wealthy or the virtuous, it's the baseline expectation for everyone. In that future, "green" won't be a differentiator. Instead, it will simply be the cost of doing business. Those who invest today with that reality in mind, patient, practical, sometimes lonely, will be the ones best positioned when the forest finally blooms. And those who don't may find themselves, too late, standing outside the gates of a new economy that has no room left for yesterday's math.
The Verge
15 hours ago
- The Verge
Print your own Switch 2 modular accessories.
The Switch 2 is here: everything you need to know about Nintendo's new console See all Stories Posted Jun 27, 2025 at 10:52 PM UTC
