The end of an era is here but with it is a new beginning. At the end of March we saw a Nintendo Direct which closed out the Switch-only era. This past week brought another Nintendo Direct dedicated to the Nintendo Switch 2. For many of us it exceeded expectations and it definitely brought surprises… whether good or bad. It was fun to do the Predict-a-ton for this event because so much is up in the air and there is so much potential. Let’s jump right in and see how things worked out.
With this special edition Predict-a-ton we started by guessing the biggest key factors of the whole thing. How long was the presentation? When is this sucker coming out? These were the general questions to kick things off. Each question had its own weight from a score standpoint but I wanted to make it less threatening to answer these questions as it was kind of a new category. Here’s what happened.
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How long will the presentation last?Results: 62 minutes
Every Nintendo Direct has a length but this was a question I never thought to ask. With the fact that this was a big special event, I think the mystery was even more enticing than ever. We can most easily look at the guesses here by considering that 55% of participants thought it would be between 40-49 minutes long. By far the most popular option. The lowest guess on length was 32 minutes, though technically a couple of folks couldn’t be considered because the submissions came in too close to the Direct when Nintendo already announced it would be around an hour.
Weeman_com managed to guess 60 minutes, making this the closest guess of all! Nice job!
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When will the Nintendo Switch 2 release?Results: June 5th, 2025
The Switch 2 release date was literally the one thing that every single participant thought was going to be revealed. Nobody out there thought it wouldn’t. The price would be elusive during the show but was revealed very shortly after so we are counting that for this game’s purpose.
64% of the participants guessed that June was going to be the release month. I am proudly one of those folks. I had no idea it was going to be the first week of June however, and I was in no position to make that wager. In fact only two of us were brave enough to take that task on.
ShadowLink had a good effort, opting to suspect a late June release, but it was
Secret_Tunnel with the foresight to nail that launch exactly. Well done! I am so glad release timing is in June, even if pricing is quite controversial. On that note…
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How Much Is The Nintendo Switch 2?Results: $449.99 USD
What could the Switch 2 cost Michael, ten dollars? Apparently more than that because a majority of guesses were not at this pricing level… in fact nobody guess the actual price. The highest guess was $430 USD with the lowest guess being $389 USD. Negative World was absolutely caught off guard here. Was it presumptions of tariff impacts or just what they value the tech at? We may never know…
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Expected Categories:With the first category we had the Expected news. These were items that were more likely, if not most likely, to be revealed by Nintendo in last Wednesday’s event. Here’s what came true. Oh! And from here on out I’ll put after each category listing a simple bracket which will say how many of the 11 Negative-Worlders voted for it).
1.) Release Date and Launch Price Confirmed: (11/11) Though Nintendo was pretty cagey about the price considering they omitted that from the Direct itself and decided to reveal right after through press-release.
All 11 participants had voted for this, which makes sense because it seemed pretty crazy that they wouldn’t consider revealing this.
2.) Mario Kart Gets A Full Trailer: (11/11) This was actually how they opened the show! It looks so good too. I’ve wanted a Forza-style Mario Kart ever since playing Forza Horizon 5 a few years back and this looks incredible. We all thought a Mario Kart trailer was going to happen, though I didn’t expect the Nintendo Treehouse with live footage to follow in later days!
3.) Revamped eShop with Switch 2: (5/11) This was barely true but we did see some evidence of the eShop getting revamped a bit. For example, the Wishlist is no longer going to be nested away in your user, but instead readily available all the time.
4.) NSO Upgrades Coming Within Switch 2 Launch Window: (6/11) NSO upgrade indeed… we’re getting a new console type and some free game updates with NSO at launch.
6.) Joy-Con Mouse Functionality Explained: (11/11) This was the third of three categories which were picked by everyone. We knew this was coming, but yet it’s almost comical how Nintendo presented this. Their trailer from late January had teased it but never explained it outright. Nintendo never made mention of the functionality even though patent documents indicated it was coming. So when it just appeared with an attitude of “Well, yeah, of course it’s here.” I found that humorous.
8.) Multiple System SKUs: (4/11) Only 4 of us felt that this was going to happen and while one could definitely argue that there is only one SKU, the fact that there is an intentional Mario Kart bundle has me opting to accept it in the purposes of the Predict-a-ton. I’d rather accept points than punish, so we’ll count it here. It’s not Switch v. Switch Lite different but it’s still a new option that is beyond the core MSRP option.
10.) No OLED Screen on the Switch 2 (any SKU): (10/11) This was a very popular pick as only one of us thought an OLED screen was on the table. I really wanted the OLED screen to be here but I wasn’t expecting it because it definitely is something they can come charge us for later. To be fair, the LCD screen they showed off and the HDR support with 120 hz support really does make this screen appear to be something to care about even without OLED.
Now that leaves the items that didn’t happen. There was no
Gold Point Replacement Plan Unveiled (2/11) and frankly I’m skeptical it’s coming because of how Nintendo appears to be handling pricing this generation. Only 2 of us felt that was going to be revealed.
Also surprising was the fact that
Metroid Prime 4 Is Not Going To Be A Switch 2 Launch Title (8/11). 73% of us had suspected it would be and I was one of those folks. It seemed to me that omitting the release date the week prior was the big clue but in fact they just haven’t set a date at all. Shocking really but I guess they just need more time to know when they want it out.
Then lastly, there were no
Additional Joy-Con Colors Beyond Red and Blue (7/11) announced. I’m sure this will come down the line but the Direct was not the day. Perhaps by the holiday season in the Fall.
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Rumored Categories:This set of predictions are less expected than the first group but there was still buzz about these topics ahead of the show. I do my best to ignore rumors with Nintendo so I was not clear on how confident folks were, so it was fascinating to see. Let’s start by seeing what came true.
3.) Twilight Princess and/or Wind Waker Re-Release: (1/11) Despite the persistent and ever present rumors, only one of us thought that this was going to come true. TheOldManFromZelda was brave enough to wager this, though perhaps it didn’t come about in the same way he or others would have expected. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is coming at launch with the GameCube NSO category, and by the simplistic wording of the category, it is a re-release of Wind Waker. So it’s counting. ‘Points for Wind Waker-dor!’
4.) GameCube Games Coming To NSO: (4/11) The above successful category leans right into this one. Only 4 people of the 11 participants voted for this. I wanted it but even I didn’t vote for it. In hindsight I’m actually surprised on how few of us went for this.
I have been saying for years that GameCube support would never come to the Switch because of how Nintendo handles the NSO collections. All games, whether you want them or not, are downloaded to your console. GameCube was a generation which started getting much larger file sizes and so the NSO package for this would end up being too great for Nintendo to want to have on their 32 GB Nintendo Switch. Now that the internal system size for Switch 2 is 256 GB they no doubt are interested and this was proven during the show. I’m very stoked about this. Let’s see Wave Race: Blue Storm and then get ourselves a new version this gen… eh? Eh?
6.) High Profile Xbox/PS5 Title Coming To Switch 2 (Metacritic of 85+): (9/11) This was a pretty popular pick, in fact it was tied for the most popular winning Rumored categories. 9 participants chose it and I’d be curious to know what games they all felt was going to come. I didn’t have a particular game in mind but I had a good feeling we’d see it. Nintendo is no longer a 3rd-party pariah. When thinking about this category, Elden Ring comes to mind the most. It has a 96 on metacritic at this time.
7.) System-level Voice Chat: (3/11) Not only did this one come true but it was a huge selling point during the Direct. GameChat is a landscape-changing move for Nintendo which hopefully will work really well. We still don’t know all the details about how well it’ll work or how easy it will be to connect with friends in the first place, but it’s coming and there’s a chance you are too. We’ve been fooled before when it comes to this and that’s why only 3 participants had chosen this one.
8.) Mysterious Button On Right Joy-Con Is Communications Related: (9/11) I wrote this with the word ‘Communications’ but I almost put ‘Chat’ and that would have been SPOT ON. The GameChat button did in fact relate to communications. All those who suspected System-level Voice Chat also guessed that the C button was Communications-related. I’d be curious to know what the two people who didn’t vote for this thought the button was going to be for.
There were just as many categories here that didn’t come true as those that did. What rumors didn’t come true were as follows. It wasn’t the most picked but still, 8 people (including myself) thought that the
New 3D Mario would be confirmed for a 2025 release (8/11). While this is still totally possible, they didn’t show any new Mario title and definitely didn’t confirm it for this year.
While they did show Mario Kart, they did not confirm that the next
Mario Kart would have a post-release content cadence (7/11). We may see that come true during the mid-April Mario Kart World Direct. I’m stoked to see it because it’s clear there’s more to see beyond what they showed. The Treehouse confirmed that.
The rumor picked the most that didn’t come true was the fact that there was no
Launch Title with a heavy focus on mouse-functionality (11/11). There was indeed a game in the works to show this functionality off. It’s that wheelchair-basketball game and I think it’s fantastic to see such inclusion via that game. However it was surprisingly not ready for launch and it will release a little later. All of the Negative World participants thought it was a sure thing but since it’s not coming on June 5th, it earns no points here.
Only 7 of us thought that
Splatoon 4 would be confirmed in development (7/11) but they really didn’t say anything about Splatoon. It was seen in the show but it didn’t get any key highlight.
Lastly, while we did see a lot of
enhancements coming to different Switch games, somehow
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition (3/11) is not one of those at this time. Maybe it just runs fine with the Switch 2 or was even designed to secretly benefit from the start, but it was not something showcased.
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High-Risk Categories:As we enter this section we’re finding categories that are further and further from reality. During many Nintendo Directs, none of these categories ever come true. Surprisingly to me, three of them did come true! This was one heck of a Nintendo Direct after all.
2.) Tears of the Kingdom DLC and/or Enhanced for Switch 2: (4/11) This was delightfully true and so far it looks great! Enhanced graphics, buttery smooth frame rates, and even some additional stuff via the Nintendo Online app with Zelda Notes. What’s particularly great here was how Nintendo is giving this enhancement for free to any NSO subscribers. So you don’t need to buy separately. The value proposition for being an NSO subscriber really is a good one. I wonder what % of Nintendo gamers is this.
5.) Sakurai’s Next Game Revealed: (4/11) I voted for this myself but I was still shocked it actually came true. Only 4 total participants thought this was plausible. I suspect that anyone who thought this may have been thinking the Kid Icarus Uprising port was something in the works, but Sakurai surprised us all with a Kirby Air Ride sequel. I’m glad I earned the points on this but I’m more glad that Sakurai is able to work on a non-Smash game that he loves. The dude deserves to make what he wants. That said… please be working on the next Smash Bros afterwards… thanks man.
7.) 3D Donkey Kong Revealed: (1/11) On some other day I would have chose this. I’ve been wanting this for so long. However I didn’t select it and most people didn’t. Only Mop it up chose this option and good you for that success! Not only did Nintendo announce a new 3D Donkey Kong but it was incredibly pretty and looks like a lot of fun.
So just those three categories came true. The other seven did not. Yikes! Let’s take a look at what wasn’t reality. Firstly, not a single person was swindled into thinking that there would be
New Labo for Switch 2 (0/11). I admit, I kind of put this one in as a joke because even I didn’t think it would happen. I do think it would be kind of neat if there was something like that on the new Switch but I knew it wouldn’t be shown during this show if it was true and nobody was tricked into it either.
Then back onto the Mario Kart front, it was not true that
Mario Kart would have only new tracks at launch (0/11). Footage has shown that past tracks are indeed part of some of the cups in the main game, but to be fair they are greatly redesigned and revamped. They look super exciting but since they’re not all brand new tracks in name or concept or layout, this didn’t come true. Nobody at Negative World thought this would come true, perhaps because of the strong history of Nintendo utilizing retro tracks. I don’t think it’s absurd, as all new stages would be a good selling point for the newness of this title, but it was just highly unlikely.
A bit more folks thought that a
New Animal Crossing would be confirmed for the 1st year of launch (1/11). Only one participant felt this. I didn’t personally go for this but I could see in another universe where Nintendo would do this and want to hinge on one of their best selling franchises to kick things off. Could it be coming still, totally. Maybe in year-two? Totally! We just don’t know yet.
2 participants voted for there being a
NSO Music App within Switch 2 (2/11). I think it would be neat to see this come true because I’d be happy to just put it on in the background (or maybe allow it to be played during other games) but it seems the time is not now.
I’ll combine the last three misses in one short paragraph.
Nintendo has not created its own achievement system (0/11) even though some games appear to have their own internal ones. Maybe that’s the way they’ll go. The
new Pro-Controller does not split in half to retain mouse-functionality (1/11). This was driven by a previous patent. I think it’s a neat concept but I’m not sure how good it would have felt in practice. Then lastly, a bit of a long-shot, but
Streaming Services are not coming to Switch 2 (0/11). Not now anyway. I wish they would because I do want to use my Switch solely for entertainment where possible, but alas, there hasn’t been a lot of support since the 3DS and perhaps it was only done back then to bolster a weakened game presence of the time.
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MEGATON Categories:These items are the biggest and most exciting possible things to come from the Nintendo Direct, or at least that’s the intention. These categories almost never come true but when they do you can win big points! This time, one single category hit, but there is a caveat. Again, I dabbled back and forth on whether to include it but I would rather give points than take them away, so I’m counting it. You see…
9.) Switch 2 Upgrades For Switch Games To Be Free Of Charge: (5/11) While this isn’t true for all games, or even most games, this is true for the Zelda games for NSO subscribers. Thus there is a path for folks to spend no additional cost to get certain upgrades. 5 participants guessed this and I felt it was worth accepting.
So what about the rest of things? Let’s try to roll through quickly. Only 3 participants felt that the
next main-line Zelda would be revealed (3/11). I’m joyed to see the next Hyrule Warriors game but that is NOT what this category was about.
Also
Kid Icarus Uprising was not ported to Switch 2 (1/11). There’s still time of course but it didn’t happen this week. Interestingly with 4 people thinking Sakurai’s next game would be revealed only one person felt it would be Kid Icarus’s remaster.
Slightly more people felt that
Earthbound would be coming to Switch 2 (2/11). I suggested that this would count whether it was an old game or a new game. Maybe someday.
One MEGATON option I put in almost as a playful tease was that
Super Mario 35 would come back as Super Mario 40 (1/11). I wasn’t the one person who agreed here but I sure wish I was wrong!
There were three folks who felt that a
New Smash Bros was coming to Switch 2 (3/11). Interestingly, two of the three folks presumed that Sakurai would reveal his next game. That means one person from Negative World thought a new Smash was coming and that it wouldn’t be a Sakurai-led one. How curious. I wonder if they’ll be right in the long run, as clearly Sakurai is a bit drained from the series and Nintendo can’t keep using him forever.
I am pretty confident now that
Nintendo will never sell a second screen which attaches to the top USB port (0/11) in order to make this a DS-style machine. I just get the idea that they aren’t interested in that when they could just remake/remaster it going forward. Perhaps the next Switch will have a docked hub that you can stream to and allow you Wii U level gameplay once again on your TV. They won’t be making a second screen I don’t think. I thought maybe they would, but no longer.
The GameCube NSO reveal kind of squandered this one but there were five people who thought that
Nintendo DS/3DS would come to NSO (5/11). I think Nintendo may do this eventually but they certainly seem like they’d like to instead focus on remastering those games as needed. Perhaps we’ll see a new version of Samus Returns but in the Dread-style? A couple of us thought that both GameCube and DS were coming in this same direct.
The last two categories were ones I would have loved to see. I know this system doesn’t fit in your pocket anymore but I felt that these two features on the 3DS were excellent. While three people thought that Nintendo would listen to fans and they picked
Streetpass returning (3/11), nobody felt that
Miiverse making a comeback (0/11) was a realistic proposition.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------*deep breath* Phew, that’s a lot to review. I won’t breakdown the franchise picks because there’s not much value there but you’ll see some comments shortly in the accolades. Somewhat shockingly, most of the franchises listed were actually represented in some way. Even something like Yoshi was seen during the speed test demo which was on screen for maybe five seconds. Before going into the accolades, let’s finally find out who won this thing!
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Predict-a-ton Results:1.) Mop it up: +31 points2.) ShadowLink: +28 points3.) TheOldManFromZelda: +26 points4.) Zero: +25 points
5.) DrFinkelstein: +24 points
6.) Weeman_com: +18 points
7.) V_s: +16 points
8.) InfinityWave: +14 points
9.) Secret_Tunnel: +10 points
10.) PogueSquadron: 0 points
11.) GameDadGrant: -9 points
If you didn’t get as high as you’d hoped, don’t fret! Nintendo Directs are incredibly unpredictable despite us all trying our best! I want to again thank you all for participating! May your Nintendo wishes come true nonetheless! Now time for the accolades.
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The ‘Fence Swinger’ Award
The widest possible point spread and got a positive score!
TheOldManFromZelda with a +142, -142 possible spread
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The ‘Brawl Tripper’ Award
The widest possible point spread and got a negative score!
GameDadGrant with a +95, -95 possible spread
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The ‘Pre-Order Bonus’ Award
The category or categories picked the most that did come true.
Expected: Release Date AND Launch Price Confirmed (11/11), Mario Kart Gets A Full Trailer (11/11), Joy-Con Mouse Functionality Explained (11/11)
Rumored: High Profile Xbox/PS5 Title Coming To Switch 2 (9/11), Mysterious Button On Right Joy-Con Is Communications Related (9/11)
High-Risk: Tears of the Kingdom DLC And/Or Enhanced For Switch 2 (4/11), Sakurai’s Next Game Revealed (4/11)
MEGATON: Switch 2 Upgrades For Switch Games To Be Free Of Charge (5/11)
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The ‘Captain Blubber’ Award
The category picked the most but didn’t come true.
Expected: Metroid Prime 4 To Be Switch 2 Launch Title (8/11)
Rumored: Launch Title With Heavy Focus On Mouse-Functionality (11/11)
High-Risk: NSO Music App Within Switch 2 (2/11)
MEGATON: Nintendo DS And/Or 3DS Coming To NSO (5/11)
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The ‘7th Generation Booster’ Award
Categories nobody picked, or the one with the lowest selected rate.
Expected: Gold Point Replacement Plan Unveiled (2/11)
Rumored: System-level Voice Chat (3/11), Xenoblade Chronicles X Gets 60 FPS Mode On Switch 2 (3/11)
High-Risk: New Labo For Switch 2 (0/11), Mario Kart Has Only New Tracks At Launch (0/11), Nintendo’s Own Achievement System (0/11), Streaming Services Coming To Switch 2 (0/11)
MEGATON: Nintendo To Sell A Second Screen Which Attaches To The Top USB Port (0/11), Miiverse Makes a Comeback (0/11 for both)
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The ‘Link’s Crossbow Training’ Award
Best accuracy in their voting choices, aka most correct picks.
TheOldManFromZelda with 68% of options correctly selected
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The ‘Switzerland’ Award
Anyone who managed to Net 0 their score.
PogueSquadron with 0 points
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The ‘I Thought So’ Award (brought to you in part by Big Brain Academy)
The game franchise which was chosen the most and was shown in the Direct.
The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, Metroid, Super Mario (11/11)
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The ‘Silk Song’ Award
The franchise chosen the most which was not shown.
Kid Icarus, Rhythm Heaven (2/11)
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The ‘Alakazam’ Award:
The person or people who accurately guessed the console release month AND week!
Secret_Tunnel
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So that’s it… finally we’ve reached the end of this journey. Thank you for participating and thank you for reading! I could spend all day spitting out more stats on this thing but I think it’s time to take a break and dream about life with the Nintendo Switch 2. I sure hope we get our heads out of our asses on these tariffs… I was looking forward to preordering next Wednesday! Anyway, until next time, be safe, be happy, and game on!!
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