Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Countdown [T-5 Days]: Will we see less stutters in current 60fps Switch titles?

Simon Walsh | Mar 28 2025 - 5:45 am PT

T-5 Days/Switch 2

Nintendo Switch is nearly a decade old at this point, and honestly, I’m very impressed by just how good some games look and perform given the constraints of its dated hardware. That being said, frame drops and stuttering are apparent at times, and I’m wondering if Switch 2 could resolve these issues for existing games. While we won’t know for certain until the next generation Switch is out in the wild, that can’t stop us from hoping and speculating for the time being.

Will Nintendo Switch 2 automatically make existing games run better?

I hope so. I’m a person that plays games more than once. So while I’m always working through my backlog of titles, routinely I return to a game I’ve beaten and enjoy it even more now that I’m familiar with all of the mechanics. This means that with Switch 2, I will certainly want to go back and enjoy games that were plagued by performance issues on Switch 1.

One example of this is Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. Less than an hour into this game I noticed a lot of frame drops and that sort of thing can really beat down an otherwise enjoyable gaming experience. I’m not really interested in an upgraded Switch 2 Edition game, I simply want there to be enough power under the hood that the next-generation Switch won’t have to stutter as frequently, if at all.

While not always the case, faster systems running the exact same software generally don’t need to work as hard to accomplish the same task and can run games smoother. This is certainly true with PC gaming, and even on mobile. This is why upgrading to a newer and more powerful smartphone can lead to better performance.

While I have yet to personally dive into Mario & Luigi: Brothership, this is a game where I’ve heard time and time again that it suffers from a lot of performance issues. For this reason, I’m holding out on playing this one until Switch 2 comes out in hopes that it will run really well on the new hardware. I know there are rumors of a 120Hz display on Switch 2, but I’m less worried about that and more interested in seeing some existings games just run better out of the box. It’d also be nice to see some 30fps games jump to 60fps, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo charged extra for that sort of an upgrade.