Ah, the internet and the many websites that jumped onto the whole “hey, look a date for this thing that isn’t even confirmed yet has been leaked. Maybe. Probably. But maybe not. Please click the link!” Granted, this kinda happened in the days of magazines but nowhere near this bad. Though now I think I need to look at old magazines to see.
Anyway, last week for some reason the idea that the Switch 2 release date had been leaked started going viral. And by release, I mean a month. Not even a date.
Just to be clear, the likelihood of Nintendo releasing the successor to the Switch this year is pretty damn high. In fact I’m expecting it. So are a huge number of people, some actually have sources. But when a company called Game Shark makes the announcement, you have to stop and ask yourself how credible it is.
Obviously triple A publishers know when the Switch 2 is launching, assuming it is coming this year. They have to know because they’re developing games for it. Well, some are. The big ones such as EA, Ubisoft and yes, Activision thanks to that ten year COD agreement. But a company like Game Shark most certainly won’t know that kinda thing. Neither will third party accessory companies aside from maybe one or two that have a contract saying they are officially licensed. Plus, anyone that does know the actual release date will be under NDA so randomly shouting it out is kinda gonna get you in a shit tonne of legal trouble with Nintendo. And then the company you work for is also going to destroy your career.
But, once again, this September apparent release is just a month. They don’t even give an actual date. There’s twelve months in the year and it’s a pretty damn safe bet that it’s going to be towards the end as Nintendo hasn’t even revealed the Switch successor yet. So you can pretty quickly work out that it’s either going to be September, October or November. Almost certainly not December.
Now, another lesser rumour that has been spotted is more about the name of the next Nintendo console. Titan Forge Games, the developer behind the free to play online game Smite has come out and said the sequel isn’t likely to come to the Switch due to the fact it’s a suited up Xbox 360/PS3 with bells and whistles that make it easier to port new games to. Basically. There’s a shit tonne more to how it all works, but yeah that’s it. I think. Anyway, what seems to have got a few people thinking there’s something the developer knows about the next console is that Titan Forge Games refers to the current console as the Switch 1 at the end of a response given to TechRadar Gaming. In other words, people think the next console will be Switch 2.
Going with Switch 2 is the path I’d choose, but this is Nintendo so who forking knows where they’ll go with the naming thing. Hopefully it’s not something so bad it ruins the chances of it being a success.
Some seem to think Titan Forge Games slipped up and revealed the current console, the Switch, will be rebranded as Switch 1 in a similar vein as to how Sony rebranded the original PlayStation to become PS1 or PS One. It’s definitely a possibility but not one that seems likely.
However, naming the next console Switch 2 is definitely a strong possibility. It will be a damn sight easier to market as a new generation console than slapping a letter or word onto the name like some think Nintendo will do. Also this isn’t the period of choosing a name for the second Xbox where Microsoft didn’t want to be a number behind Sony’s PlayStation. That would have been decided about twenty years ago. I think Nintendo are in the clear.
I don’t know whether a developer and publisher such as Titan Forge Games would have access to a Switch 2 dev kit yet. Probably not, but who really knows. They obviously can’t say. But I doubt this was a slip up and accidentally kinda revealing anything to do with names of the Switch successor or rebranding of the current Switch. Again, NDA would be at play so the answer given would be controlled.
