Surprise! Nintendo just unveiled the Switch 2 – and a new Mario Kart game

There’s a new Nintendo console on the way. If that sentence doesn’t tickle at your inner child, we don’t know what will, frankly.

The Switch 2 is, as the keen etymologists will have deduced, the successor to Nintendo’s innovative 2017 handheld-meets-traditional console and like its forefather, you can take it with you out of the house or detach the controllers from the screen and hook it up to your telly.

The specs are TBC, but Switch 2 will play both physical and digital copies of Switch 1 games, so there’s hope yet for your long-abandoned Breath of the Wild save. Not all titles are backwards-compatible, though.

The reveal trailer also features gameplay from a previously unannounced Mario Kart game. Visually it looks… well, very similar to Mario Kart 8, if we’re being honest. The Mario Bros. Circuit featured in that gameplay, though, is all-new.

The game hasn’t been given a name or a release date yet, but you can expect it to be a launch title with the Switch 2 since it featured in the console’s reveal trailer.

So, when can we get back to mastering our blue flame powerslides and bellowing expletives at jovial cartoon characters who use perfectly timed shells on us? Nintendo’s keeping the Switch 2 release window rather broad, at present: it’s out in 2025.

However, several viewers have drawn attention to the trailer’s 2.22 runtime – is it significant? Going by the US calendar format, 2.22 is 22 February. Then again, they had to end the trailer some time, and there’s apparently more news on the console coming on 2 April, so it’s probably not strong enough grounds to start booking annual leave for Feb.