April 2 will go down in history as a monumental day for the Nintendo Switch 2. We finally got a deep insight into the console specifications and how it will perform, but I did not have the Switch 2 nearly being called the Super Nintendo Switch on my bingo card.
The Nintendo Switch 2 has a release date, an eye-watering price tag, and the price of games is a serious conversation to be had. The name of the Switch 2 has barely mustered a whisper, though. We all assumed it would be called the Nintendo Switch 2, it ended up being called the Nintendo Switch 2, and this very nearly wasn’t the case.
An interesting developer interview shows history could’ve looked very different.
We Nearly Had The Super Nintendo Switch Instead of The Switch 2
A special interview with Nintendo developers Kouichi Kawamoto, Takuhiro Dohta, and Tetsuya Sasaki was released on the Nintendo website shortly after the Switch 2 Direct showcase.
Many questions and musings about the Switch 2’s development were posed. Topics covered include cross-platform capabilities between the Switch 1 and Switch 2, improvements in the Nintendo Switch 2, and the device’s name.
One interview question stood out: “However, we haven’t touched on the name yet…How did you land on the name Nintendo Switch 2?”
The answer was interesting: “There were a lot of ideas for the name, and we really struggled to find the right one. We even considered ideas like “Super Nintendo Switch.” However, Super NES, which came out after the NES, couldn’t play NES games. Since Switch 2 can play Switch games, it didn’t feel right to use the same naming convention as Super NES. Switch 2 is a new system with improved performance, but we’d like players who get their hands on it not to focus on the specs, but rather to think of it as the latest system developed by Nintendo.” So, in the hope that it becomes the new standard for Nintendo Switch, we named it Nintendo Switch 2,” said Kawamoto.”
So there you have it! The name “Super Nintendo System” was on the cards, but I question how close we were to the name. Nevertheless, it’s a cool detail and one to remember as trivia for obscure Nintendo quizzes in the future.
Should it have been called the Super Nintendo System? Would it have been a neat throwback to yesteryear? Let us know over at the GPlayr Forum.