Nintendo Really Did Consider Calling The Switch 2 The Super Nintendo Switch

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home April 3, 2025 3 Views 4 Min Read
Nintendo Really Did Consider Calling The Switch 2 The Super Nintendo Switch
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Summary

  • Nintendo devs have revealed calling their new console the Switch 2 wasn’t a straightforward decision.
  • The name Super Nintendo Switch was very much on the table, but eventually wound up getting vetoed.
  • The fear was people not knowing Switch games worked on the Switch 2 due to the SNES not being backwards compatible with the NES.

Until Nintendo confirmed its next console would simply be called the Switch 2, there were debates over what exactly the name of its next system should be. After Switch 2, the most popular pick was the Super Nintendo Switch, and those in charge of making that sort of decision have confirmed that name was very much on the table.

Nintendo has published a Q&A about the Switch 2 with some of the developers who have been working on the console. When asked about the name, Nintendo producer Kouichi Kawamoto confirmed he and others at the studio went back and forth over whether calling the next Nintendo console the Super Nintendo Switch would be a good idea.

someone taking a switch 2 out of its dock.

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“We even considered ideas like Super Nintendo Switch. However, Super NES, which came out after the NES, couldn’t play NES games,” Kawamoto explained. “Since Switch 2 can play Switch games, it didn’t feel right to use the same naming convention as Super NES.

The Switch 2 Could Have Been Called The Super Nintendo Switch

Nintendo Devs Explain Why They Decided Against It

Nintendo’s senior director Takuhiro Dohta added a little more to the explanation behind why calling the Switch 2 the Super Nintendo Switch was a route Nintendo decided not to take. “We wanted a name that would communicate simply to potential customers that, if you’re considering buying a Switch, Nintendo Switch 2 is the newest system,” Dohta explained.

The point that Nintendo devs kept arriving back at when discussing what to call its next console was potential confusion over what exactly people would assume the console is if it were called the Super Nintendo Switch. Not only because it’s backward-compatible, unlike the SNES with its predecessor, but also because some looking to buy a Switch might assume the Super Nintendo Switch is just a better version of the original and therefore not feel the need to buy it.

Calling it the Switch 2 conveys to everyone, whether a casual gamer or someone clued into Nintendo’s console naming conventions, that this is an entirely different console, not just a more powerful version of the OG Switch. That might mean Nintendo takes the PlayStation approach moving forward, and from here on in, each of its consoles will simply have a bigger number at the end. So the Switch 3, then the Switch 4, and so on.

That will likely depend on how the Switch 2 performs on the sales front. Nintendo needed to reinvent its home console after the disastrous Wii U, but needed the opposite when jumping from the Switch to the Switch 2. If the Switch 2 performs as well as the original Switch, it would be silly to shake up the formula and risk breaking that streak.

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