50 Fun Facts About Nintendo Switch

Which Super Mario game arrived in the Switch's first year, 2017?

Odyssey. In Super Mario Odyssey, Mario throws his cap to take control of enemies, and the game sold nine million copies within about two months.

What codename did Nintendo use for the Switch before its official unveiling?

NX. Nintendo kept the hardware hidden under that name, and Shigeru Miyamoto said it skipped E3 2016 because the company was worried about imitators.

What are the Switch's detachable wireless controllers called?

Joy-Con. Turned sideways, each half works as a small controller of its own, so two people can play straight out of the box.

Which Nintendo console did the Switch succeed?

Wii U. It sold only 13.56 million units in its whole life, a total the Switch passed within ten months of going on sale.

What does Nintendo call playing the Switch propped on its kickstand on a flat surface?

Tabletop mode. It sits beside TV mode and handheld mode as one of three official ways to play, and the 2021 OLED model swapped the original kickstand for a wide adjustable stand.

What does Nintendo call the precise vibration feature built into the Switch's detachable controllers?

HD Rumble. At the Switch's unveiling, producer Yoshiaki Koizumi shook a controller and said he could feel ice cubes dropping into a glass one by one, then water rising.

Which 2015 role-playing epic reached the Switch in 2019?

The Witcher 3. Its makers cut back texture detail and foliage to fit the handheld, yet kept the whole game and its two story add-ons, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.

The Switch's system-on-chip was developed in partnership with which company?

Nvidia. Nintendo had always built custom chips before, but chose well-established Tegra technology this time so that outside studios could bring games across more easily.

The original Switch's 32 GB of storage can be expanded with which memory card?

MicroSD. Nintendo used the standard format rather than a card of its own, so the same cheap cards made for phones and cameras can add up to 2 TB of space.

Which life-simulation series released a Switch game in March 2020 that sold nearly 12 million copies in 12 days?

Animal Crossing. New Horizons came out as pandemic stay-at-home orders spread, and its makers said they hoped players would use it as an escape.

What did the $199.99 Switch Lite give up?

TV output. The Lite has no dock support and its controllers are built into the body, so it runs only games that work in handheld mode.

Which Zelda remake launched beside the Switch Lite in 2019?

Link's Awakening. It remade a 1993 Game Boy adventure set not in Hyrule but on Koholint Island, where Link must wake the sleeping Wind Fish to leave.

Which colour was one of the three Switch Lite launch colours?

Turquoise. It launched beside yellow and grey, and because the Lite's controls are fixed to the body, its left side gained a proper D-pad in place of four separate buttons.

The Switch's OLED model launched alongside which game in October 2021?

Metroid Dread. Nintendo had started and shelved a game of that name in the mid-2000s, so its release ended a 19-year wait for a new 2D Metroid.

What wired connection did the dock of the Switch's OLED model add?

Ethernet port. The original dock had none, so anyone who wanted a wired internet connection had to buy a separate LAN adapter and plug it into a USB socket.

What nickname did rumours give a more powerful 4K Switch?

Switch Pro. Reports had promised 4K graphics, but the OLED model arrived with the same chip and memory as before and a $349.99 price, $50 above the original.

Which long-standing restriction on Nintendo's home consoles did the Switch drop?

Region lock. A game card bought in Japan runs on a Switch sold in America or Europe, though Nintendo still advises buying within your own region for full support.

The Switch was the first major home system to use cartridges since which console?

Nintendo 64. The three Nintendo home consoles after it all ran games from discs, so the Switch's small game cards revived a format its living-room machines had left behind.

Switch game cards are coated with what to discourage children from swallowing them?

A bitterant. Nintendo confirmed the coating, denatonium benzoate, only after players and reviewers licked the cards at launch and reported a foul taste that would not go away.

What nickname did the gaming press give the higher prices of some games on Nintendo's hybrid console?

Switch tax. Game cards cost publishers more to make than Blu-ray discs, and more still at larger sizes, so some games were priced above their versions on rival machines.

Which Switch launch game had first been announced four years earlier for Nintendo's previous console?

Breath of the Wild. In its first month the Switch version sold 2.76 million copies against 2.74 million consoles, so there were more copies of the game than machines to play it on.

Which Switch launch title showed off its controllers with face-to-face minigames?

1-2-Switch. Players are told to look at each other, not the screen, in games such as a wild-west quick draw and a cow-milking contest.

Which talk-show host played Zelda on a Switch live on TV in December 2016, before the console's launch?

Jimmy Fallon. After the demo, Shigeru Miyamoto sat in with Fallon's house band, The Roots, to play the Super Mario theme on guitar.

Nintendo's first Super Bowl ad, for the Switch in 2017, was set to a song by which band?

Imagine Dragons. Their single 'Believer' had been out for only days when the ad aired, and the exposure sent it to number two on Billboard's chart of songs in TV commercials.

Which wrestler tried the Switch in Nintendo's 'Unexpected Places' campaign?

John Cena. He fronted the first stop, a living-room set built in the California desert, before the tour moved on to a Colorado ski slope and a New York park.

What is Nintendo's line of do-it-yourself cardboard accessories for the Switch called?

Labo. Its cardboard sheets fold into 'Toy-Con' such as a piano, a fishing rod and a robot suit, which come to life when the Switch and its controllers slot inside.

Which Switch exercise game sold out around the world in early 2020, with resellers charging several times its price?

Ring Fit Adventure. Players jog on the spot and squeeze a flexible ring to fight a bodybuilding dragon, and the game went on to sell more than 15 million copies.

Which 1980s Nintendo game was hidden in the Switch's firmware as a tribute to Satoru Iwata?

Golf. Iwata had been its only programmer, and Japanese fans called the hidden copy an omamori, a protective charm watching over every console.

To unlock the Switch's hidden tribute to Satoru Iwata, players copied his hand gesture from which Nintendo series?

Nintendo Direct. The two-handed 'Direct' motion was Iwata's signature in the video showcases, and the tribute worked only on July 11, the date of his death in 2015.

Who was president of Nintendo of America when the Switch launched?

Reggie Fils-Aimé. He retired in April 2019 and handed the presidency to his head of sales, whose real name is Doug Bowser.

Who became Nintendo's president after Iwata's death in 2015?

Tatsumi Kimishima. He steered Nintendo through the Switch's launch, then retired in June 2018 to bring about what he called a generational shift at the company.

Which Nintendo president told investors in February 2021 that the Switch had entered the middle of its life cycle?

Shuntaro Furukawa. He proved right: the Switch 2 arrived in June 2025, a little over eight years after the original, which puts early 2021 close to the halfway mark.

Which Chinese company partnered with Nintendo to release the Switch in China?

Tencent. The partnership won the approvals needed for a December 2019 launch, when just one game, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, had been cleared for sale in China.

Which pair of Pokémon games, released for the Switch in 2019, introduced the Galar region and giant Dynamax battles?

Sword and Shield. The games left out many older Pokémon, and fans angry at the cut nicknamed the row 'Dexit'.

As of mid-2026, which game is the Switch's all-time best-seller, with more than 70 million copies sold?

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It is an upgraded re-release of a 2014 game from Nintendo's previous console, yet it has outsold every game made new for the Switch.

When Nintendo Switch Online launched in September 2018, which previously free feature began to require a paid subscription?

Online multiplayer. Internet play had been free for the Switch's first 18 months, and the paid service sweetened the change with cloud saves and a library of classic games.

Which major streaming service stayed off the Switch entirely?

Netflix. Nintendo of America's president said in June 2018 that conversations were 'on-going', but Hulu, YouTube and Twitch all arrived and Netflix never did.

What is the premium tier of Nintendo Switch Online called?

Expansion Pack. It launched in October 2021 at more than double the basic price, and the trailer announcing it became the most-disliked video on Nintendo's YouTube channel.

What name is given to the Switch controller defect at the centre of a 2019 class action?

Drift. The sticks register movement nobody made, and within days of the lawsuit a leaked memo told Nintendo's support staff to repair affected controllers for free.

Which battle royale game was released free to Nintendo Switch Online members in February 2019?

Tetris 99. Players send their cleared lines to 98 rivals until one board is left standing, a formula Nintendo later reused for Pac-Man, Super Mario and F-Zero.

Gary Bowser ended up owing Nintendo $14.5 million for selling what?

Hacking devices. As a member of the group Team Xecuter, whose Switch tools let owners play pirated games, he was also sentenced to 40 months in prison in 2022.

As of December 2025, which was the only console to have sold more units than the Switch?

PlayStation 2. Sony listed its total as 155 million for over a decade, then raised it to 'more than 160 million' in 2024, so the target moved as the Switch drew near.

By late 2025 the Switch had overtaken which handheld as Nintendo's best-selling system?

Nintendo DS. The dual-screen handheld had set the company's record at 154.02 million units, and the Switch needed almost nine years on sale to edge past it.

The 2025 Switch 2 has controllers that double as what?

Computer mouse. A sensor on the side of each controller turns a table, or even the player's lap, into a mouse pad in games that support it.

How do the Switch 2's controllers attach to the console?

Magnets. The controllers snap onto the sides and come away when a release button on the back is pressed, replacing the rails that the original's controllers slid along.

In 2024 the Switch beat which Nintendo home console's record for the longest run without a successor?

NES. Its Japanese original, the Famicom, went 2,686 days before its successor arrived, and the Switch passed that mark in July 2024 with almost another year still to run.

Which battle royale hit arrived on the Switch during E3 2018 and was downloaded two million times within a day?

Fortnite. Nintendo revealed it in its E3 broadcast and released it the same day, a surprise that put the game on more than two million consoles within 24 hours.

How did Nintendo's own voice chat for Switch Online subscribers work on the original Switch?

Through a smartphone app. It launched in July 2017 for Splatoon 2 and had players talking through their phones, a workaround the Switch 2 replaced with a built-in microphone.

Which Switch fighting game brought back every fighter its series had ever featured?

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ended its run of new fighters with Sora from Kingdom Hearts, a deal its director thought impossible until he met a Disney executive by chance at an awards show.

How could shoppers spot the 2019 Switch revision with longer battery life?

An all-red box. The original's packaging had a white background, so red became the quick way to tell which consoles lasted 4.5 to 9 hours rather than 2.5 to 6.5.