Nintendo is perhaps just days from announcing a new video game console, and that has understandably got a lot of people excited.
For a while now--but it feels like things really got going in the last week or two--the more enthusiastic sections of video games and tech media have been filling the quieter holiday news cycle with rumours, whispers and speculation about new hardware. "Nintendo Switch 2 reveal imminent, reports suggest" reads a Eurogamer headline. "Nintendo Switch 2: everything we know about a potential Switch successor" is at the top of this Techradar story. There was even a frenzy over a third-party peripheral maker’s CES booth.
This kind of fever pitch isn't new. As long as we've had the internet--and especially dating back to the 2000s reveal of the Wii--we've been inundated with rumours, guesses, mockups and hoaxes during the leadup for each successive Nintendo console, few if any of which proved to be even remotely accurate, or even if they were, actually meant anything. Doesn't matter! People really want to know what a new Nintendo machine is like, and when we’re going to see it for the first time, and if Nintendo isn’t forthcoming with that information then fans will gobble up whatever else is out there.
I understand the excitement; a Nintendo console announcement is a big deal, and we haven't had one for eight years. But the Switch 2 (or whatever it's called) will be announced...only when it's announced. Nintendo will show a video (or two), unveil the machine, announce some games, maybe even some prices and release dates. Then it'll be a thing that we know about. Until that moment, despite everyone's excitement and enthusiasm, none of the guesses and rumours and reports mean much. They’re vapour, rumour, fragments of information mostly lacking in context.
You cannot rush Christmas. Christmas (if you celebrate it!) rules. You get cool stuff to play with, there's joy, you see people, it's great. Folks look forward to it all year long; it’s a very special day. But no matter how much I love Christmas, no matter how many rumours I could read about Santa leaving his workshop on December 3, no matter how many Photoshops I could see showing him climbing down chimneys on December 19, I cannot change that date, or its significance. The presents only get opened one day a year. Like other jolly old men with white beards, Santa will get here precisely when he means to. The calendar is immovable.
And so is Nintendo. So unless we find ourselves in the extremely unlikely event of a full leak ahead of time--images, specs, dates, the works--we can just relax! The Switch's successor is coming. One day hopefully soon, and when it arrives, you will know everything about it, see everything about it, and it will be a real, verifiable thing.
Until then, despite all the rumours and speculation flying around out there, you'll just need to wait a little bit longer. You've made it this far, you can make it another few–if reports are to be believed–days.
