Summary
- Nintendo Switch 2 consoles are reaching fans early, though they haven’t been able to actually play anything on the console yet.
- According to a couple of people, the Nintendo Switch 2 will require an internet connection and an update to actually function.
- It could just be the Switch 2’s backwards compatibility feature that requires an update though, as no Switch 2 games have been tested just yet.
Nintendo Switch 2’s release date is just a couple of weeks away, and it feels like it’s approaching surprisingly quickly. It’s about that time when we see people start to prepare, whether that be selling their old systems, prepping cloud saves, or some other bizarre pre-console ritual I’m sure we all have. However, some have had a lot less time to prepare than the rest of us.
That’s because Nintendo Switch 2 consoles seem to be making their way to fans early. On Tuesday evening, a YouTuber called Ali Almarzooqi posted a video of themselves unboxing a Nintendo Switch 2, while another person anonymously contacted Twitter account Wario64 (thanks VGC) to claim that they had also received a console early, but they had “no permission to post pics”.
Nintendo Switch 2 Consoles Are In The Wild, But You Can’t Actually Play On Them Yet
Ali Almarzooqi’s video appears to have been (unsurprisingly) nuked from YouTube, but both they and this anonymous Switch 2 owner have both claimed that the console won’t even function right now. This appears to be because the console needs an update – which will likely become available on June 5 – to actually play games. According to the anonymous user, the console will tell you to “please connect to the internet and update your system” when trying to boot up a Switch game.
Related
There Is Zero Chance Of Nintendo Switch 2 Being Another Wii U
Switch is already a bigger success than the Wii U ever was.
It’s possible that this means the Nintendo Switch 2 is essentially useless unless you connect it to the internet, but there are a number of possibilities here. For starters, nobody has tried booting up a Nintendo Switch 2 game yet, and the system’s backwards compatibility may be the thing that requires the update that’s coming on June 5.
It’s also possible there could be some kind of special firmware in launch units to stop people from streaming and sharing footage before the system’s release date. Despite how much of an open secret the Nintendo Switch 2 was in the run-up to its reveal, Nintendo is still a very secretive company, so it’s very possible Nintendo could have done something to prevent leaks like this.
If we find out that the entire console is actually completely useless without an update, then it will be another major blow for the game preservation crowd, which has been irritated with Nintendo recently over its bizarre Game-Key Card system for large, third-party titles. We’ll only know for sure on June 5, when the rest of us can get our hands on Nintendo’s fancy new machine.
- Brand
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Nintendo
- Operating System
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Proprietary
- Storage
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256GB internal / MicroSD
- Resolution
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1080p (handheld) / 4K (docked)
- App Store
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Nintendo eShop
- Wi-Fi
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Yes