With Switch 2 now offering Handheld Mode Boost and free or paid upgrades for older titles, the original Switch is increasingly being outpaced as more major games go Switch 2-exclusive, including Splatoon Raiders and upcoming titles like Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and Metroid Ravenous. The original Switch OLED still holds advantages in battery life and screen contrast, but its $399.99 price looks weak next to the base Switch 2 model for anyone who mostly docks the console.
Walmart is offering a $10 discount on physical preorders of Metroid Ravenous, the upcoming 2D side-scrolling entry in Nintendo's Metroid series for Switch 2, bringing the price down to $59.88 from $69.99. The game, a sequel following the events of Metroid Dread, is set to launch January 28th, 2027, though it's unclear how long the discounted preorder price will remain available.
Nintendo's newest Fire Emblem entry, Fortune's Weave, arrives this week as a Switch 2 exclusive, weaving four overlapping character storylines set in the region of Dagda and its capital, Dagsion. The game opens with a time-traveling ambassador before shifting into tales of four flawed protagonists whose ambitions and grudges drive gladiatorial battles and city-wide side quests.
Nintendo has released Fortune's Weave, a new Fire Emblem title that adopts the open-ended structure recently seen in Zelda, Mario Kart World, and Donkey Kong Bananza. The game lets players choose between four hero routes before converging into a final act, allowing them to switch storylines freely and even combine character stats across playthroughs to build powerful hybrid units.
Suyu, a successor to the Yuzu emulator that Nintendo sued out of existence, released what its developers called a final version featuring a new recompiler mode that translates Switch game code directly into native x86-64 binaries for faster PC performance. Days after the team archived the project's repository and halted development, a new group forked the code under a fresh version scheme to keep the emulator alive. Separately, another developer built Wine-NX, a tool that runs older Windows PC games on Switch hardware.
Nintendo disclosed a security flaw affecting original Switch consoles that exploits the QR codes used by the Send to Smartphone feature and Super Mario Kart: Home Circuit's wireless pairing. If someone scans the QR code before the owner does, they can connect to the console and run unauthorized code or steal stored account data. Nintendo fixed the issue, tracked as CVE-2026-82079, in firmware update 23.0.0 released September 9.
A homebrew project called Wine-NX ports Wine 11 to the Switch's Horizon OS, letting it run x86 Windows games via Box64's ARM64 translation and Mesa's nouveau graphics driver. Demonstrations show Need for Speed Underground 2 playing at 20-45fps, OpenTTD hitting 60fps, Quake III Arena running around 37fps at 720p, and WarCraft III partially functional with menus and cutscenes working.
Engadget writers reflected on beloved GameCube games as the console marks its 25th anniversary, highlighting titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. One writer argued the GameCube version, with Link's original left-handed orientation, is the definitive edition compared to the mirrored Wii release built for motion controls.
A retrospective analysis compares the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube, noting the PS2 sold 160 million units globally versus the GameCube's 21.7 million, even though the GameCube was technically more powerful. The piece attributes PS2's dominance to broader adult-oriented marketing, DVD playback functionality, backward compatibility, and a massive library of nearly 4,500 titles compared to the GameCube's more limited third-party support.
Nintendo is holding a Customer Appreciation Sale from September 13-26, offering 30% discounts on games, DLC, Amiibo and accessories across the eShop, Nintendo Store and retailers. The company says the promotion is funded partly by roughly $300 million in tariff refunds it recovered from the US government, rather than passing those refunds directly back to customers.
Nintendo has enabled variable refresh rate output for Switch 2's TV mode through a new firmware update, requiring an updated dock to work. The feature was originally promised at launch, then quietly removed, before a job listing hinted Nintendo was still developing it for TV play. The same update also adds a handheld boost toggle, Mii editor changes, and full system transfer between Switch 2 consoles.
Nintendo has released firmware update 23.0.0 for the Switch 2, finally enabling variable refresh rate support when the console is docked and running in TV mode, a feature promised before launch but missing at release. The update also adds a handheld boost mode toggle in quick settings, nostalgic music options in the Mii editor, and full system transfer between two Switch 2 consoles.
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