The gaming world has been rocked once again by rumours that Nintendo covertly showed off their next console, the Switch 2, behind closed doors at last month’s Gamescom expo in Germany. Hard Drive was at the expo, and we can confirm that whilst we got hands-on time with the Switch 2, we weren’t planning on making it into a whole thing.
Yeah, we get it, in this industry it’s all about having the hot scoop about new, unannounced tech, and what could possibly be juicier than the follow up to Nintendo’s hybrid console which took the world by storm? But even with that in mind, it didn’t really feel like our news to share. If everyone else is gonna though, I guess we will too.
Nintendo trusted us, which is not something we take for granted. So even though we saw the Matrix demo, and got to try out raytraced Breath of the Wild with the new ribbed joy-cons, it’s not the sort of thing we were planning on talking about. It’s called a Non-Disclosure Agreement for a reason, folks. Clipping the Switch 2 into its headset and trying out the VR mode was cool, but it was a private moment between a press outlet and a multinational corporation.
That’s why we were so disappointed to see certain sites decide to make a big deal out of the fact that the Switch 2 was demoed for them in Cologne. It’s inappropriate behaviour from people Nintendo clearly thought were their friends, and quite frankly it smacks of main character syndrome. It’s not all about you, guys. Most of us were able to test out the new scroll-wheel triggers and then have the good decency to keep quiet about it.
How do you think Nintendo feels in all of this? Upset, betrayed, almost certainly heartbroken. We wouldn’t be surprised if this whole situation causes them to cancel the Switch 2, which would be a shame as the new haptic screen is really cool.
We reached out to Nintendo for comment, and just to check they were doing okay. They have yet to respond. Great job, guys.
