Developer Claims Nintendo Switch 2 Dev Kits Don't Support 4K Output - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 April 2025 / 7,021 Views
A developer that spoke with Insider Gaming at GDC have claimed the Nintendo Switch 2 dev kits don't support an output resolution of 4K.
"I heard this from one developer at GDC and also heard it separately in an email but the dev kits, or some of the dev kits, don’t have a 4K output," said Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson.
It should be noted this doesn't mean the retail release of the Nintendo Switch 2 won't support 4K output. Dev kits don't always fully match the specs of the final console.
Nintendo is set to unveil more details on the Nintendo Switch 2 this week on Wednesday, April 2 at 6:00 am PT / 9:00 am ET / 2:00 PM GMT / 3:00 pm CEST during the Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
More Articles
April fools.
lets hope you are right!
Anyone expecting 4k are fools. Nintendo also need to sell this thing at an affordable price.
Being able to output video at 4k and being powerful enough to render games at 4k isn't the same thing. I think any sane person would expect the Switch 2 dock to be able to output 4k resolution. Most games will render the HUD elements at 4k even if the game itself is running at a low resolution so that at least the text and GUI is sharp.
Plus the Switch 2 would be more than powerful enough to be able to actually render some simpler games at 4k, especially with DLSS. N64/GC/Wii virtual console at 4k, media apps, 2d games. Not to mention many Switch 1 games should be able to be patched/upgraded to higher than 1080p resolution.
It makes zero sense for the Switch 2 to not support 4k output, it would have no impact on price, and I won't believe it till I see it in the final retail product. If it does lack 4k output currently it will be entirely down to the OS, and a baffling software limitation from Nintendo and I fully expect that to change.
Ouch!
So about this comment... lol
4K...120hz... HDR and VRR support
I was always buying it, but I'd never expect it, not from Nintendo. You are still fools for expecting it from them.
Lol
Is this surprising?
Metroid Prime Beyond - 4k at 60fps. Read it and weap
Maybe better that way. All thesse 4k games releasing these days with taa and motion blur/smear is annoying. If we can have better picture clarity , i'd rather game on 1080.
Could be true, but could also be something that Nintendo is holding back until the final dev kits. Remember the earliest rumors, that the dock itself could contain some hardware in it and do the 4K upscaling itself (not the main Switch)? That COULD also be true.
It is no secret Switch 2 will be using DLSS. I don't expect it to be called DLSS of course - the big 'N' would never use NVIDIA's branding - but it will be similar or nearly identical. DLSS needs tensor cores, and game integration to work properly. Now, what if Nintendo mandates that all Switch 2 titles run with this DLSS upscaling enabled? In handheld mode, all games run at say 540p and then DLSS-upscaled to 720p?
Now, what if, since the DLSS is already part of the game, and since we know the docked mode can direct more wattage to the chip, if in docked mode the game then runs at 1080p. And then - crazy as it may seem - the dock itself has special chip with more tensor cores, working in tandem with the built-in tensor cores of the SoC, to turn that 1080p resolution into 4K.
If done right, and since this is a closed console development OS it definitely could be, doing that docked 1080p-to-4K upscale step would require zero developer intervention. It would just work on the system level.
I'll wait to see what the final product can officially do before I pass judgement.
Regardless of the output itself I would hope they don't aim prematurely for running 4K like the PS4 Pro did. I'm no frame nazi but if the switch could get choppy at 1080p (or less) there's not way the Switch 2 wouldn't at 4K.
i really think that is inevitable, especially for games running in handheld mode. There are plenty of game that should be able to run at 60 FPS. But if we are going by results on the Xbox Series S... which ofthen hits 30 FPS on sub 4K resolutions... we should expect the same thing from Switch 2.
I mean I don't consider 30 fps choppy at all if it's consistent, just want to avoid significant drops and that's easier to do if games are made with 1080p or 1440p in mind.
because its 2025... and NX2 has DLSS
Of course it supports 4k and 120 FPS
No one needs 4k except for a few.
1440p and 60 fps is all I need.
Well, do you have 1440p TV? Cause if you have 4K TV, then you really need for Switch 2 to have 4K output and then, whatever resolution it natively renders at, upscale via DLSS to that 4K before reaching TV - otherwise you're letting TV doing the upscaling, which is nowhere near as good.
That sad, it would be quite weird for Switch 2 to have only 1080p output, so I'm fairly certain commercial versions will have 4K output.
Unless you are willing to pay over $900 for a 4k Hand-held, it's not happening. Nothing wrong with 1080p/1440p
You can get $200 handhelds with 4k output. This isn't about rendering games at 4k it's about outputting a 4k signal.
Outputting 4k video signal and rendering games at 4k are two entirely different things. As I said in my other comment modern games have dynamic resolutions but the GUI is usually rendered at 4k.
This has nothing to do with power.
You can run a game at 720p but still have the text and HUD in 4k. Also as mentioned in my other comment virtual console, media, switch 1 ports, 2d games, DLSS, there's many reasons that the console should support sending a 4k video signal and I expect it will do.
As Zippy said, this has nothing to do with native rendering resolution (which indeed depends on how powerful CPU/GPU is), but outputting final signal at 4K - most TVs today are 4K, though you can still buy HD (1080p), or even HD Ready (720/768p) sets, with 8K starting to gain some traction. So that's their native display resolution. As far as I know, there are no 1440p native TV sets.
Switch is 1080p docked, meaning it outputs 1080p signal (and what is actual native rendering resolution depends from game to game). It is to be expected for Switch 2 to have 4K output, and whatever rendering resolution games use to be upscaled internally to 4K (or maybe only to 1080p, if game is super demanding and renders under 1080p).
1440p is not something that should be sent natively (either truly rendered natively or upscaled to 1440p via DLSS) to TV set. 1440p makes perfect sense for PC gaming, since there is crapload of native 1440p monitors, but not for consoles that output to TV.
Depends on how much the price shoots up having that feature.
There is a clear reason why Nintendo might not be doing it.
With volume they're aiming for? Maybe $5 more for HDMI 2.0 over HDMI 1.4 (that Switch has)...if that.
We dont know that. Could be many factors. Nintendo are not a stupid company, they know what they need and how much to spend.
So, as I said HDMI 2.0, for 4K/60fps. It was really silly to doubt they would not include 4K output.
It's really silly to expect it from them. It's Nintendo
You don't seem to understand much about hardware, do you? Licensing and chipsets for HDMI 2.0 (which allow for 4K/60Hz) is quite cheap, especially on volume they expect to sell. Going into new generation without that would be mindblowingly stupid - and, as actual hardware proves, they are not that stupid.
You must be new to gaming if you trust Nintendo this much to provide the latest in modern technology.
I love Nintendo, but I never expect much with their hardware advancements.
Yeah, I'm new...only been gaming since 1979.
As I said, you really, really don't know much about hardware (or business side of it for that matter) If you didn't expect them to have HDMI 2.0 support, when they have all other way more expensive things in Switch 2.
Then you must be new to Nintendo. They will do their best to avoid paying more so they can sell their systems at a profit.
I know HDMI 2 is the standard but knowing Nintendo, it wouldn't have suprised me if they skipped it. That's my point.
I'm a big Nintendo fan btw.
No, not new at all to Nintendo and their shenanigans - if they could get away with HDMI 1.4 they would - but they can't, not in 2025. Anyone expecting that was...well, fool, as you've put it so eloquently.
HDMI 2.1 is current standard, which allows for 4K/144Hz, 8K/30Hz (though with display stream compression you can go with even higher refresh rate) - 2.2 is expected this year, which will allow for 4K/240 and 8K/10K/60.
Nintendo went with the least they can get away with, 2.0, so they can have 1080/1440/120Hz and 4K/60Hz.
[deleted]
