After the big Switch 2 presentation, Nintendo revealed in an interview with the console’s development team that one of the (possibly best) names the company considered before settling on Switch 2 was “Super Nintendo Switch.”
“There were a lot of ideas for the name, and we really struggled to find the right one,” says Kuichi Kawamato, Switch 2 producer. “We even considered ideas like ‘Super Nintendo Switch’. The problem with the name was that while it was fun to draw parallels with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), it was also potentially confusing. The SNES was the successor to the NES, but it couldn’t play NES games. “Since the Switch 2 can play Switch games, it was wrong to use the same naming convention as the Super NES.”
Adding a number to the end of the original console’s name (a common strategy of Nintendo’s competitor, Sony, which launched the PlayStation) simply made things much easier and clearer. Nintendo’s caution is not entirely unfounded. The Wii U was more powerful than the Wii and had a unique controller, the Wii U GamePad. Since its name was very similar to the name of the old Nintendo console, it was compatible with the Wii and supported existing accessories such as Wii Remotes, but it was seen as an add-on rather than a new device worth upgrading to.
There were other issues that contributed to the failure of the Wii U, such as a sharp decline in support from third-party game developers and Nintendo’s inability to explain what made the console different, but the name certainly didn’t help. The Switch 2 has a much better chance of success than the Wii U, but “sticking with what works” seems to be the defining idea of the new console, so the name is in line with that principle.
