Latest news with #JoyCons
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Nintendo Switch Deals: Save Up To 33% On Consoles, Games And Accessories
The original Nintendo Switch was released nearly a decade ago, but it continues to be one of the most popular gaming consoles available. Its streamlined design and versatility makes it an ideal family console that pleases serious gamers and casual players alike. Whether you're looking to pick up the award-winning Super Mario Bros. Wonder, some Fastsnail Grips for your Joy-Cons or a deal on an older Nintendo Switch Console, we found the best Nintendo Switch deals right now. The Nintendo Switch 2 is scheduled for release next week, which means we'll likely see better deals on older versions of the console in the coming weeks. That said, Nintendo sales are generally few and far between, so it's still worth taking advantage of a deal now if you see one you like. And if you don't mind shopping open-box or renewed models, you can find even lower prices on consoles. (Just make sure the design isn't regionally locked outside your home country.) Here, we've listed the best deals on Nintendo Switch consoles, games and accessories at the moment.
Gizmodo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Switch 2 Has Six Joyful Nintendo Touches to Help it Stand Out
Nintendo's Switch 2 Joy-Cons 2 will literally make music in the connection menu. As much as Nintendo's games try to emphasize the 'fun' first, the company's consoles themselves similarly want to spark joy in odd, though surprisingly endearing, ways. Even before the Switch 2's launch, Nintendo shared a few odd and cutesy features beyond the headlining mouse controls and GameChat that are meant to remind you you're not just plugging in any bog-standard gaming machine, especially not when you can play a song with your Joy-Cons on the connection screen. The Switch 2, swathed in its new black finish, may look a little too dark and drab compared to classic, colorful Nintendo, but the amusements are more than skin-deep. The more technologically minded Nintendo fans have poured over recently leaked Switch 2 specs. The console will indeed be many times more powerful than the original Switch. The specs also revealed the console will support VRR—or variable refresh rate—on handheld mode up to 120Hz but not on TV when docked. Variable refresh rate is a way for displays to change the rate a screen refreshes to match a game's frames per second (fps). Nintendo confirmed with Nintendo Life that it posted 'incorrect information' to its website suggesting VRR is supported on TVs. That language has been changed, but the hubbub surrounding this talk of VRR or other spec details largely misses the point. Games are already confirmed to run at a max 60 fps at 4K. Other resolutions will carry their own standard frames per second. The PlayStation 5 didn't get VRR support until two years after its 2020 release. In the same way, Nintendo could update this at a later time. So unless lack of VRR leads to screen tearing issues, Nintendo would rather focus on the oddly endearing functions of its new handheld. Much like the original Switch, there are a few hidden features that Nintendo has in store when the Switch 2 launches June 5. We'll be sure to add more once we finally have the console in hand. You Can Customize the Side Panels on the Joy-Cons 2 You will be able to customize the Joy-con 2 side panes like the PS5 faceplates. Some new panels have already started popping up. — Centro LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) May 5, 2025 Those blue and red accents on the Switch 2 Joy-Cons 2 aren't going to be your only option. The controllers currently only come in black, but users can remove the small side panels in a similar fashion to how you can swap out the fins on the PlayStation 5. Some shops are already selling replacement panels and removal tools. We expect Nintendo will try to sell a bounty of different color options in the future. If the Japanese console maker plans to sell different-colored controllers, we could be in store for some interesting color combinations. The Controller Connection Screen Will Let You Make a Tune The original Switch included a hidden feature on the lock screen, where pressing different buttons activated different sounds. Few Switch owners knew about it, but you—dear reader—will be some of the few to know controllers can make music in the system's 'Change Grip/Order' section of the main menu. Nintendo said you can play different sounds with your connected controller by pressing the L/R, ZL/ZR, and SL/SR buttons. Nintendo said you can 'even create a musical scale' with these sounds, but enterprising musicians will certainly be able to carry a tune. This works with all first-party controllers, including Switch 2 Pro controllers and even the original Switch's Joy-Cons. Speaking of sound, Nintendo also shared more of the main menu chirps and bleeps. Now if only Nintendo could make something as endearing as the Wii Shop theme. Nintendo Today showed off some of the system sounds of the Switch 2! ⁰- There are different sounds for pressing the C Button and for selecting each icon on the HOME Menu. – A sound also plays when you wake up the docked system from sleep mode. — Genki✨ (@Genki_JPN) May 18, 2025 You Can Navigate the Switch 2's Main Menu With Mouse Controls Console gamers will get a small taste of the PC lifestyle with the ability to navigate the Switch 2 main menu with the Joy-Cons 2 mouse controls. This may make navigating the newly redesigned eShop much easier. Mouse controls are supposed to be one of the major defining features of the handheld console, and you'll find it in a surprising number of games. Super Mario Party Jamboree will include mouse-specific minigames, and the upcoming Drag x Drive will use it for pushing around a wheelchair for basketball-based antics. Those titles that aren't using first-person mouse controls—such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond—or in real-time strategy games like Civilization VII, will likely be using it to navigate menus. The Switch 2 Helps You Find Your Missing Joy-Con Between the Couch Cushions The original Switch included a Find Controllers feature that made a missing Joy-Con chime and vibrate in case you're having a hard time finding it. Nintendo updated this feature for the Switch 2, but it should work the same as before. You'll find this capability under the controllers section of the main menu. The Joy-Con needs to be paired with the console and still have enough battery to receive the signal. Switch 2 Will Save on Battery With a Hidden Setting Switch 2 owners can enable a 'Stop Charging Around 90%' setting that should help save your battery long term. It's a common feature on other devices like smartphones, and it should help keep your battery capacity stable over a longer period of time. It will reduce your undocked playtime, though it's a good idea to use it if you plan on taking the handheld out and about. If it sounds obvious, then know the Steam Deck only added a battery maximum charge limit setting this month through its latest beta. The Switch App Will Be How You Can Access and Share Screenshots While Nintendo intends its GameShare feature to be the main way you'll interact with friends and share moments, users should be able to send their friends in-game screenshots with a new Switch app. This will make it far easier to share your favorite moments without needing to go through the original Switch's tedious process of scanning a QR code to bring them up in a browser. You'll also use the app to access friends lists and use it for voice chat online. You need a Switch Online membership to access these features.
Digital Trends
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
The end of the Nintendo Switch era closes a long chapter in my own life
My first memory of the Nintendo Switch is about as mundane as it gets. I don't recall unboxing it, powering it on for the first time, or bringing it to a rooftop party. Instead, I see myself sitting in my ex's living room on a random weekday. As they cooked, I sat quietly as I climbed atop of my first Divine Beast in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I don't remember this because it was a triumphant achievement that showed off what kind of spectacle my new next-gen console could pull off; I remember it because I was very depressed. Recommended Videos While Nintendo was starting a meteoric rise in March 2017, I was hurtling towards the ground faster than Link with a depleted stamina wheel. I had just come off a stressful election year marred by a wave of beloved celebrity deaths. The world felt like it was coming to an end, an alarmist thought that especially felt true as a new administration wreaked havoc on the United States come March. My personal life wasn't going much better. My ambitions were non-existent and I was locked into a day job career that I never wanted. I was becoming more despondent by the day and I could sense that a breakup was imminent. It would be months until I'd go to therapy for the first time in my life, so all of this pent up anxiety that I tried to keep quiet bled into my Joy-cons as I gripped onto them for dear life. I find myself reflecting on this small moment now as the Nintendo Switch 2's June 5 release date looms. For the first time in eight years, I'll unbox a brand new Nintendo console on that day. Its internal storage will be empty. My Samus avatar won't greet me when I boot it up because I won't have logged into my account yet. The tablet will be a blank canvas that I will fill over the next eight years of my life one download at a time. And though it's an arbitrary moment in time born from cold boardroom meetings and clinical earnings calls, I see the start of a new console era as an opportunity to reinvent myself too. If I look back through my life, I can map my development by the video game hardware I've owned. My Sega Genesis takes me back to the early days of my childhood spent playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with my brother before he got wrapped up in his own teenage angst. The GameCube conjures countless memories of the formative high school years that I spent bonding with my close friends over rounds of Super Smash Bros. Melee. I'm back in college when I think about the Wii, navigating physicality for the first time in both my relationships at the time and the video games I was playing. Each console, each handheld tells countless stories about where I have been and how I have evolved alongside the tech that followed me there. That now weighs on me as I prepare to power down my Switch for what could be the final time in just a few weeks. My instinct has been to process that moment with a retrospective about the system, reflecting on the games that made it one of the best video game consoles of all time. Instead, I've found myself more and more focused on mapping my own generation. Who was I during this eight-year Switch era? What will be the snapshot I see when I think back to Super Mario Odyssey or Fire Emblem: Three Houses? The answer doesn't feel as simple as it once was when I was younger and console generations were shorter. I began that journey at rock bottom, hopeless and floundering amid societal collapse. The Switch would follow me through multiple breakups, several jobs, three apartments, the death of a close friend, and unprecedented moments in history that chipped away at my mental health. Just as the Switch is inseparable from a pandemic that defined its power, I can't untangle those eight years from the waves of pain and uncertainty that washed over me between new game releases. If the Nintendo Switch 2 had launched in 2020, I'd be able to tell you with relative certainty that the Switch represented the worst years of my life. But eight years is a very long time, much longer than these hardware time capsules usually hang around. A period that long is bound to bring arcs, both for the console and its players. Nintendo kept steady while riding a wave of momentum shifts due to a changing landscape around it, but my ride was different. While I started at the bottom, playing Breath of the Wild as an escape from the world around me, I began to rise. I started therapy and got a better job months after the Switch released, just when everything was at its most hopeless. I made a more serious career pivot in 2020, landing a dream job that put me on the path to a career in video game writing I'd always thought was unobtainable. I eventually landed here at Digital Trends and made a name for myself writing work that I'm proud of. I stumbled my way through relationships only to land into something more secure and healthy. I hit a peak alongside the Switch in 2023, the same year it would release the double whammy of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder. When I look into my Switch's display now, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the black screen, I see an era of rebuilding. These were eight years that threw the challenges of adulthood at me and dared me to overcome them. It felt impossible in the moment, but I'm still here. Maybe I'm just looking too closely to find patterns, but I see a direct parallel to that story and Nintendo's own. Like me, Nintendo was listless in its Wii U era. It had no idea where to go after the Wii's success, just as I didn't know how to turn the creative fulfillment of my college days into something sustainable in adulthood. It too was at rock bottom when the Switch released, in desperate need of a second act. Nintendo got one, and so did I. If this is the start of a new era for Nintendo, who's to say it can't be another beginning for myself as well? But our lives don't stay the same for very long. Ahead of the Switch 2's launch, I find myself in a similar low to the one I was in back in 2017. History has repeated itself as a mentally taxing election year has yielded the same president that made my life hell for the Switch's first four years on the market. The career I built for myself is one strong wind away from tilting over as games media endures an intense period of contraction, one that destroyed the website that gave me the dream job that catapulted me to success in 2020. Some days, I'm every bit as distant and despondent as I was back then. When I turn on my Switch 2 for the first time in a few weeks, it will feel cyclical in a way that's bound to leave me overlooking just how much I've accomplished between launches. But I'm trying to approach it with a bit more hope this time. If this is the start of a new era for Nintendo, who's to say it can't be another beginning for myself as well? I know that I'm capable of climbing out of despair, even as the biggest forces in the world fight against me. There will be change. I will undoubtedly pack my things into 50+ boxes again in between playing levels of the latest Mario game. I will fall out of touch with some friends and gain some new ones. Perhaps I'll miss Nintendo's big Switch 3 reveal in 2033 because I'll be too busy nursing an injured pigeon during my shift at a bird rehabilitation center. Maybe the Switch 3 won't happen at all as Nintendo moves on to its next bright idea after a disappointing generation that calls for a creative overhaul. I can't possibly know who I will be the moment I power my Switch 2 down for the last time. All I know is that Mario will probably be there at the finish line, looking not one day older than he does now while I greet him with a grayer beard. I'll try not to be jealous of his eternal youth — some Italians just age better than others. Instead, I'll embrace those differences, as grumpy as I no doubt will be in my middle age, as every change will be a sign that I've made it through another leg of an ongoing relay race. I'll be ready to pass the controller to whichever version of me is up next when I get there.
Forbes
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
This dbrand Killswitch Case Should Be Your Next Switch 2 Pre-Order
Switch 2 Killswitch case with detachable JoyCons dbrand Thursday's Switch 2 pre-orders were the very definition of "a hot mess." Every retailer that offered the Switch 2 for pre-order at midnight had issues handling traffic or accurately reflecting pre-order status. For instance, I found out that my Target pre-order had gone through in the morning when I woke up and saw a confirmation email that'd arrived 30 minutes after I'd given up clicking the unresponsive Checkout button and gone to bed. GameStop wasn't much better when their site completely crashed upon the 11 AM ET pre-order launch. If you're one of the lucky ones that did manage to get a pre-order in (or you're hopeful for Nintendo's email system) it's time to start thinking about accessories. And while there are plenty of JoyCons, Pro Controllers, Piranha Plant cameras, and JoyCon wheels to buy, equally important is protection for your new system. Usually I'm not a case guy — I prefer to put my trust (however misplaced) in the engineering prowess of a company. But then dbrand revealed a case system so intriguing that it shot to the top of my accessories budget. Since dbrand launched their Killswitch line in 2022, they've been extremely popular, especially the Steam Deck version which The Verge dubbed the one accessory everyone should buy. And it's easy to see why! The grips are textured and grippy, the case itself offers military-level drop protection, and the cover is perfect for protecting your screen when you're on the go. Killswitch case with JoyCons attached dbrand For the new Switch 2 version, dbrand's taken everything they've learned with their other offerings and improved them. First off, despite the name, the Switch 2 Killswitch won't kill your Switch. In fact the drop-protection provided by the case should keep it protected from most incidental falls. What's nice is that the case is modular, so that the JoyCons are still detachable. The JoyCon covers add an ergonomic grip dbrand The JoyCon covers are particularly interesting. Not only are they textured, but they add an ergonomic grip that the controllers lack on their own. As someone who's spent many an hour hunched over their Switch OLED playing Hades, I can tell you that JoyCons are not comfortable to grip. The fact that this will make holding the Switch 2 more Steam Deck-like is quite welcome. It also adds a USB docking system that can be used as a display stand for your Switch 2. I'll admit, I don't entirely see the vision here? If I'm going to tabletop game with my Switch 2, I'll use the kickstand (which the Killswitch is compatible with) and if I'm going to dock it, I'm playing on my TV. But I like that this gives people options for continuing to comfortably play and charge their device at the same time. Travel cover with game collection dbrand Like the Steam Deck version, the Switch 2 Killswitch has a travel cover. Though it's oddly clear — but there's a method to dbrand's madness. That clear cover is compatible with the included game card holder! Given that the rumors of physical game cartridges costing more were completely baseless, those gameless game carts are going to be more common than you think. This gives you a place to display your collection while you take it with you on the road. It's a smart, contained solution and I love smart, contained solutions. Grippier than your standard joystick dbrand Finally, the Switch 2 Killswitch will come with rubberized joystick covers. They're molded and nubbly to ensure precise control even when you're on your 10th Mario Kart World race in a row. Pricing hasn't yet been provided, but I imagine it will be in the $70-$100 range, based on the pricing of the company's other Killswitch offerings. For now, you can pay $3 to secure early access for the June launch. That $3 will be credited towards your purchase (or you can get a refund if you change your mind). FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Checking out the dbrand Nintendo Switch 2 page reveals that they've got additional products coming to market to coincide with the June 5 launch. In addition to the Killswitch, they'll have a version of their "idiot proof" Prism 2.0 display protector. This has intrigued me for a while, as applying glass protectors are phenomenally difficult to do correctly. Their unique dust-eliminating applicator seems to have it all figured out. If you don't want a full protection package but want to add some funky style to your Switch 2, dbrand will have a wide array of skins available at launch as well. In addition to cool designs like Area 51 and glow-in-the-dark circuits, the company is creating Switch 2-specific skins. Given the quality of their previous designs, I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with. You can register your email to get notified when they're available.
