Nintendo’s “thing after the Switch”: How an overheard convo sent me reeling

SEATTLE—It’s not every day I hear about unannounced Nintendo products over guac.

Thanks to a chance encounter last month, I’ve been sitting on one of the weirder scoops in my 25-year writing career—one that will simultaneously set many gamer tongues wagging and bore other gamers to death. It’s about Nintendo, and I should start by making abundantly clear that I didn’t get the information double-checked or verified by anyone who has particular access or insight into the gaming company’s plans (neither did I ask my uncle who—promise, swear—works as Mario’s personal driver).

But I have been turning over this minuscule scrap of information in my mind ever since. What I heard is both simultaneously a resounding “duh” for a company like Nintendo and yet also possibly illuminating about the industry giant’s near-future plans. So I invite you to sit with me, grab a chip, and pick at this bowl of game-industry-news guacamole.

Ars Technica is always listening

On an overcast August afternoon, I put on a mask, hop on my bike, and pedal to a cozy restaurant that’s a decent haul from my Seattle apartment. I’m meeting a longtime colleague to talk shop—something I haven’t done in a long time but am finally comfortable doing—and we want an option with a patio. I don’t overthink my choice.

While waiting for my colleague to arrive, I order some chips and grab my smartphone. I’m idly doomscrolling when the party three tables over catches my attention. I hear the word “Nintendo,” and my ears perk up. Decades of nerd-dom mean that I always want to hear public chatter about video games. (Or, you know, awkwardly walk up to a stranger and offer unwanted “well, actually"s about the Mother/Earthbound series of JRPGs.)

The words are fuzzy, other than clarifying that one of the speakers “works” at Nintendo. But one declaration can be heard across the patio: “I’m working on the thing after the Switch.” Then a pause. “If I tell you more than that, I would have to kill you.” A laugh. I brace myself by clenching my phone. My eyes dart about in search of a hidden-camera prank-show crew.

This is followed by fuzzier words—something about working in “Microsoft’s backyard” (likely meaning Redmond in Washington state, where Nintendo of America is headquartered). Another mumbler starts talking about their life, not Nintendo. They go quiet when the check shows up and the credit card comes out, and a heartbeat later, they’ve slipped away from the patio, no further secrets revealed.

An unsurprising surprise

My eyes are glued to my smartphone so as not to look directly into the sun of this incredible moment for me, a full-time critic and reporter on the games industry—and also to type every word I heard before I possibly black out and lose the thread. Minutes later, my colleague shows up, and I give him the kind of look that suggests Bill Murray just sat next to me, bought me a shot of tequila, and whispered into my ear, “No one will ever believe you” before vanishing into a cloud of smoke.

“You are not going to believe what I just heard,” I tell Ars Technica contributing reporter Steve Haske, and I describe the white-hot moment I had just undergone. Haske nods and waits for me to offer a further bombshell. I admit I don’t necessarily have one, then ask if he’ll help me turn the aluminum wrap on my burrito into a tin-foil hat. He obliges, and we begin hashing out my weird moment. First up: we nearly met elsewhere for coffee instead of here for lunch. (Though in Seattle, who’s to say how relevant the location was? Maybe we missed our shot at hearing a wild, local Apple or Facebook rumor over cappuccinos, instead.)

It seemed legit, we each say. I would be impressed if someone went to the trouble of tailing and trolling me for the sole purpose of dropping fake Nintendo news into my bowl of guacamole. But the overheard conversation also sounded like exactly how two friends would catch up, if one works for the gaming sphere and one doesn’t. “Switch.” “Microsoft’s backyard.” They were picking and choosing recognizable terms instead of immediately explaining revolutionary tech concepts or exact release dates of niche sequels. (So, no, this chance encounter didn’t lead to revelations about the return of a dormant Nintendo series like F-Zero.)

The revelation also seemed a bit pedestrian. Nintendo’s going to make more gaming hardware? Big whoop, Poindexter. You don’t have to look far in any of Nintendo of Japan’s financial disclosures to see reminders that the company is constantly developing new ideas in the realms of both hardware and software. Some gaming analysts and execs have suggested that concepts like cloud gaming will eventually render standalone game consoles obsolete. But we’re not there yet, and Switch sales are still too hot for Nintendo to stop making new consoles altogether. So, sure. Another Nintendo console. That checks.

Chewing over word choice

But the victim of my eavesdropping didn’t say “Switch 2.” I say this to Haske, and he nods. “They didn’t say ‘Switch 2,’” he parrots back. We each chomp on a chip and chew on the leaker’s choice of words.

If I’m in Nintendo chatterbox’s shoes and casually catching up with a nongaming friend on what I’m working on, I might say something like “Switch 2,” “the next Switch,” or “another Switch” to describe what Nintendo’s making next. That’s an easily understood concept. It would also jibe with rumors in the wild. Reports from as recently as March of this year suggest that Nintendo might launch a “Switch Pro” this year, complete with Nvidia DLSS functionality so that it could upscale game graphics to look nicer on 4K TVs.

That didn’t bear out. Instead, we’re weeks away from Nintendo’s launch of Switch OLED, which will work identically to existing Switch and Switch Lite systems. But those Pro rumors, as reported by Bloomberg Japan, suggest that such an upgraded Switch could still be in the works, or was at least heavily weighed, as opposed to being a complete fabrication.

So what might a phrase like “the thing after the Switch” mean? It could be the Nintendo chatterbox’s carefully phrased way to disguise the simple fact that the next Nintendo console will indeed be another “Switch.” Though if said Nintendo staffer was interested in carefully hiding key company secrets, you and I wouldn’t be here right now.

It probably won’t be called Switch U

Or… it could be a strong indication that Nintendo is still licking its Wii U wounds. Pick through any of the Wii U console’s reviews or critics’ post-mortem thinkpieces in the wake of Wii U being taken off of production lines, and you’ll see a consistent refrain: the market didn’t understand that Wii U was an entirely new system. People thought it was another Wii, and they already had a Wii, so they didn’t need a Wii that didn’t necessarily resemble the Wii. And they didn’t buy it.

Arguably, Nintendo is in a much better market position to advertise an upgraded “Switch” in ways that shoppers would understand. New smartphones and tablets roll out on a regular basis, and the Switch’s portable form factor makes a similar sales pitch easier: you know how you need an iPhone from the past three or four years to access the highest-end features or certain 3D-heavy games and apps? “Switch Pro” would be the same.

But if Nintendo wants to move in a different hardware direction in such a way that it could both sell existing Switches and a conceptually different console, that would mean enough differentiation in both the name and how it works. Speculation into how it’d be different is much tougher. That gets into the Nintendo staffer’s “kill you if I tell you more” territory.

Whatever shape it may take, “the thing after the Switch” is clearly closer to store shelves than you might immediately suspect, at least in terms of how Nintendo has historically worked. The Japanese-headquartered company maintains a number of discrete divisions in its Kyoto offices that prioritize development of, say, new hardware, new software, and other R&D projects. If it’s doing similar things at its Nintendo of America offices, the company has neither formally announced such hardware-development efforts on our side of the Pacific nor has it hired for such roles in the United States.

If someone at NoA says they’re “working” on such a system, then, that means its specifics have moved into a broader “need-to-know” basis, as opposed to being a wholly confidential plan inside of a Nintendo device lab. That doesn’t mean a new Nintendo console generation will surprise-launch tomorrow, but it does suggest that Nintendo is closer to formally moving on from the dated 2015 Tegra X1 chipset than it has publicly hinted.

In light of this week’s FCC filing

If you’re in my circle of friends, you’ve heard me tell this story a few times. In my mind, the storytelling usually plays out like a 22-minute YouTube influencer video that’s based on 12 seconds of information. There are lots of hard edits and cuts to emphasize particular hot takes. I play a lot of wacky sound effects, like a baby crying or the Captain Falcon “show me your moves” clip. I insert the classic Reggie Fils-Aimé animation of him tapping his wristwatch. I shout out my sponsor and some Patreon followers.

My friends’ responses range from interested, firm head-nodding to awkward fidgeting. The former love a good scoop and aren’t too concerned about how ultimately mild the discovery is. The latter, meanwhile, have one thing in common: they work in industries where busted nondisclosure agreements can destroy projects and careers. Their anxiety is partially on behalf of the person I overheard and partially rewinding to their own scary slip-ups of saying the wrong juicy thing at the wrong time.