Alex Simmons
Guest
Editor’s note: This interview was conducted on April 3, 2025, prior to Nintendo’s announcement about delaying Switch 2 pre-orders in the United States due to the potential impact of tariffs. Parts of this interview were edited for clarity.
After getting hands-on with Nintendo Switch 2 at last week’s reveal in New York, IGN spoke with the hardware leads spearheading the development of Nintendo’s newest console. Kouchi Kawamoto and Takuhiro Dohta from Nintendo’s Entertainment Planning and Development Department, along with Tetusya Sasaki from Nintendo’s Technology Development Division, talked to IGN’s Brian Altano about the technology behind Switch 2, the classic Nintendo handhelds that have inspired them and the impact former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s legacy had on the development of the console.
IGN: Can you talk about the SOC system on a chip the Nintendo Switch 2 was running? Is it Nvidia Tegra? If not, can you reveal which graphics architecture it's based on?
Nintendo: I think you'll find a lot of the details in NVIDIA's information that they've shared.
IGN: One of the notes in the direct suggested to hit 4K in dock mode, upscaling may be required. What kind of upscaling is this system using? Is it using AI upscaling?
Nintendo: I think probably the main kind of easiest upscaling to use is the DLSS that Nvidia provides. So from that standpoint, I guess you could say this AI.
Nintendo: That said, we're planning on providing other options of upscaling through software and so ranging from something that uses AI to something that's not. I think you'll see that as time passes. And lastly, I'll add that even though there is upscaling, there's also the option to not upscale and just output natively. So that's also an option that developers can use.
IGN: What about ray tracing? Is that something that your team experimented with?
Nintendo: Just like DLSS, that's when we're kind of making the graphics of a game. We consider ray tracing as just another tool to do that – it's not that we're going to try to use ray tracing on everything, but really trying to figure out what types of graphics, what types of screens, what types of situations are best suited for ray tracing, and then trying to apply that. That's the approach we took when we did all of our researching and experimenting.
IGN: We saw that the switch two supports third party cameras. What about third-party mice?
Nintendo: You're talking about USB mice, things like that?
IGN: Yeah, not the animal!
Nintendo: [Laughs] It really depends on the game software with the structure. So if that software supports third-party USB mice, yes.
IGN: I have a six-year-old daughter. She took my Switch and I don't get to play it anymore. She also has dropped it a lot and it's okay. What have you done with Switch 2 to make sure that it can survive a kid dropping it on the floor or dropping it down the stairs?
Nintendo: Nintendo has made very sturdy devices through the ages and I believe that this time around as well, we've made something that will be sturdy.
Nintendo: Yeah, you can drop it a little bit. I don’t recommend it though!
IGN: I also have a Steam Deck and I like it, but the fan gets very loud when I'm playing high end games. It's almost distracting. What did Nintendo do to make sure that that was taken into account when designing the hardware for Switch 2?
Nintendo: When a fan is loud it really does affect one's gameplay, so that is definitely something we had in the back of our mind during the development of the Nintendo Switch 2. The system is made to adapt depending on the processing capability so I'm kind of curious to hear from the others here what their experience has been like.
Nintendo: When I was playing it it's not like, “Wow, there's a fan in there”. It hasn’t really gotten to the point where, even through development of the hardware, it has bothered me in any way.
Nintendo: The hardware team put quite a lot of effort into making sure the airflow was smooth. So a lot is coming in but there's a lot coming out, and as such the fan noise isn't too significant.
IGN: Nintendo invented the directional pad and it's been important for video games for my entire life. What did your team do to ensure that the Dpad on the Switch 2 was great for fighting games, puzzle games, platformers, all that fun stuff?
Nintendo: You may think that every time you see the directional pad that it's just the same button being reused, but the truth is we do make small adjustments and add small changes every time. I have people – our development and game development teams – try them out when we make a new one.
Nintendo: This is a more detailed point but for the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller directional buttons, we made it so that it's even more difficult to have mistaken input. Of course, it doesn't completely eliminate that possibility but it should reduce it.
IGN: I'm a big fan of Nintendo handheld systems and always have been since the original Game Boy. What are each of your personal favorite classic Nintendo handhelds?
Nintendo: I have fond memories for each of the systems that have come out but for me personally, I think the original Game Boy really has a special place in my heart. Part of the reason for that is that since then there's obviously new systems that came out, like the Game Boy Advance for example. But I just distinctly remember my mother with the original Game Boy playing Tetris, and that’s just burned into my memory.
It was Mr. Iwata's concerns about the magnets that meant it didn't come to fruition [for the original Switch]
IGN: Some of you worked with the legendary Satoru Iwata. Is there any specific part of his legacy that inspired the Nintendo Switch 2 design?
Nintendo: There are various aspects but what comes to mind first is the magnet connector. We originally didn't adopt it for the Nintendo Switch because it wasn't as secure as we would've liked. However, we put a lot of effort into this aspect and that has come to fruition.
Nintendo: It was Mr. Iwata's concerns about the magnets that meant it didn't come to fruition [for the original Switch]. So being able to actually address all of the issues and create something that probably would've met his standards is moving and meaningful.
IGN: I love it. I think I took the JoyCon on and off 20 times yesterday!
Nintendo: I actually have a question for you. You saw the footage of the JoyCon 2 snapping on and off. Was the impression you got from that footage different from actually snapping it on and off?
IGN: Yes. I thought it was going to be like a refrigerator magnet and it was going to be wobbly loose and instead it just goes ‘snap’ and clicks in. And I was like, “Oh, that feels really nice.”
Nintendo: I'm very relieved to hear that!
IGN: Yeah, they told me I had to stop doing it!
Brian Altano has been playing Mario Kart for 30+ years, and it's crazy that 10 of those years were spent with Mario Kart 8. We haven't seen Battle Mode for Mario Kart World yet, but he's still holding out hope that Block Fort can come back. Bring back Block Fort!