Japan's Nintendo said on Thursday it will release the Switch 2 console this year, unveiling a device that appeared to closely follow the design of its popular predecessor.

Backward compatibility has always been a thorny issue for new consoles. Just weeks before the PS5 released in 2020, Sony refused to acknowledge whether it existed despite pressure from critics and fans.

You can always count on Nintendo for a surprise. This is the company that followed the Game Boy with a strange dual-screened handheld and broke out of its GameCube slump with a console focused on motion controls.