Horizon

The best new tech heading your way

1 NINTENDO SWITCH 2

£TBC, nintendo.co.uk The worst kept secret in tech has finally been confirmed, following sneaky pics dribbling onto social media of the motherboard, the newly enlarged joycons, the rear of the machine, the dock, the logo, and even the entire console courtesy of a careless accessory manufacturer at CES. Loose lips won't sink Nintendo's ship, of course, but let's be clear: the big N's initial announcement of the Switch 2 basically amounts to little more than 'yes this exists', 'yes, it's called the Switch 2', and inevitably 'yes, you want it'.

With Nintendo not letting on with many specifics, let's talk what we think we know. Pics of the system suggest it's about 15% larger than the original, and now likely features an 8in screen. Scuttlebutt suggests that'll be an LCD in the original batch, presumably to make room for a later OLED upgrade and keep the price down for early adopters.

Motherboard pics indicate that the Switch 2 will feature an Nvidia Tegra T239 processor originally designed for automotive applications, offering a ten times performance increase over the Tegra X1 in the original Switch. That's power similar to a last-gen console like the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, with the potential for its CUDA AI cores to take on the task of upscaling older 720p Switch games to juicy 4K.

All credit to Nintendo for keeping the baby and the bathwater together, and potentially bucking the good console / bad console cycle it's followed since the SNES. Roll on the full unveil in April.

WHAT AND WHEN

Nintendo remains cagey about the release date, but the company appears to have been manufacturing components since at least November. We'd guess mid-year. Hopefully Nintendo has made enough, given that the teaser netted over 17 million views in its first two days - four million more than the PS5 trailer.

JOYCON UPGRADES