Nintendo’s reveal of the Nintendo Switch 2 came with a big teaser for what will be easily the console’s biggest game: Mario Kart 9.Throughout the short video that showed off the Switch 2’s hybrid design and how it’s been changed compared to the original Nintendo Switch, a Mario Kart game was running on the console’s screen in handheld mode, and when docked.
Check it out:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxLUf2kRQRThere’s plenty of tidbits to dig out of this, most notably that this was a never-before-seen Mario Kart game, featuring a brand new circuit: Mario Bros.
Circuit.Mario Bros. Circuit takes us to a desert location with a proper race track design to it, though a track that quickly veers off the tarmac and onto the baked dirt of the desert, and eventually careening onto a multi-lane highway with traffic on it, where a Yoshi branded motoway-side diner or filling station could be seen as the camera pulled out to show a huge landscape, by Mario Kart standards.We spotted a bunch of returning characters, taken from the regular cast of playable characters:These characters were driving a variety of different vehicles, including traditional kart/ATV styles, bikes, and a new tracked snowmobile for Rosalina.Today’s Nintendo Switch 2 announcement was pretty abstract outside of Mario Kart 9, showing lots of points of comparison how the console has changed from the original Switch design.
It shows the added USB-C port on the top of the console, the new kick stand design, the enlarged Joy-Con with new magnetic snap attachment mechanism.
The console shares the same hybrid approach as the original Switch with detachable Joy-Con for docked or tabletop play.Nintendo Switch 2 is coming out in 2025, with Nintendo reconfirming that it will have backward compatibility to Nintendo Switch games, both digital and cartridge.