Rumor: Nintendo showed Switch 2 to developers at Gamescom 2023

Original: A new report from Eurogamer claims that during Gamescom 2023 last month, Nintendo showed Switch 2 to developers behind closed doors.

We previously reported that the company would be returning to the expo for the first time in years. Fans could play games such as Pikmin 4 on the show floor, but the more interesting action was happening behind closed doors.

Eurogamer says that partners were “shown tech demos of how well the system is designed to run.” The report goes on to say that one such demo “is a souped up version of Switch launch title Zelda: Breath of the Wild, designed to hit the Switch 2’s beefier target specs.” However, that doesn’t mean Nintendo intends to actually release this.

Speculation about a Switch successor has started to ramp up this year. One report from the summer indicated that the system would have a portable mode similar to the current console, which is hardly a surprise. Also, it is supposedly planned to launch in the second half of 2024. The device may make use of an LCD screen, which may come as a slight disappointment to some that have gotten used to the current Switch OLED.

Update: VGC is corroborating the report and claims that Epic’s The Matrix Awakens Unreal Engine 5 tech demo, previously made to showcase the power of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, was on display. It apparently used NVIDIA’s DLSS upscaling technology, “with advanced ray tracing enabled and visuals comparable to Sony‘s and Microsoft’s current-gen consoles.”