ASFANDYAR Magazine

The Nintendo Switch 2 is basically a bigger, more capable Switch.

The Switch 2 is here — well, almost. Nintendo took the wraps off its new console during its latest Direct event, providing us with a closer look at the $449.99 console ahead of its release on June 5th.

In many ways, the sequel is a generational leap from the original console / handheld hybrid that rocked the gaming world over eight years ago. Nintendo is building upon the successful foundation it laid with the original Switch by offering a larger screen, more internal storage, and magnetic Joy-Con controllers that can operate like mice. It’s also introducing some new features, like GameChat, which lets players make voice calls, screen share, and video chat.

Below, we’re taking a closer look at the on-paper differences between the Switch 2 and its various predecessors — specifically, the original Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch OLED. We’ve even thrown in the handheld-only Nintendo Switch Lite, just for good measure.

Pricing and availability

The Switch 2 will retail for $449.99 at launch, or you can b …

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The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is coming in the Switch 2’s GameCube collection at launch.

Before this morning, I knew I was going to buy the Nintendo Switch 2 but I didn’t know when. After watching Nintendo’s Switch 2 Direct today, in which a purple block traced the GameCube’s stylized “G” logo, followed by high-res footage from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and F-Zero GX and an announcement that they’ll be playable at launch, I realized I’ll be doing my damndest to get it on day one. It was the cherry on top of a stellar presentation that made the console’s $449.99 price tag way easier to swallow.

GameCube games are coming to the Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) subscription’s Classic Game Library feature, which the company is now shortening to “Nintendo Classics.” It lets you play games from the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis. Like the Game Boy and Nintendo 64 game collections, you’ll need the NSO Expansion Pack for GameCube games. The existing catalog of playable Classic Game Library games is far from complete, but together (and combined with DLC for contemporary Switch games), they make the Expansion Pack well worth it.

The subscription gets even more enticing on the Switch 2, starting before the console even comes out — Nintendo is prioritizing long-time subscribers (with certain caveats) when it sends out Switch 2 preorder invites. The Expansion Pack will also let you play the Switch 2 editions of Zelda games Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (provided you own their respective Switch 1 versions). 

But the GameCube games are what I’m most excited about. I’d love for the Wii U’s Wind Waker HD to get a Switch re-release, but the GameCube version is still one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played and looks great in Nintendo’s trailer for it. So does F-Zero GX, a game with such well-executed style and tight control that I would pit it against any futuristic racer today. The Switch 2 is also launching with Soul Calibur II, a game that featured adult Link as a playable character in his post-Ocarina of Time fighting-people-for-sport era.

The company flashed a few other re-releases coming down the line, like Super Mario Strikers and Chibi-Robo!, in the latter of which you play a tiny, toothbrush-armed robot tasked with cleaning up a very messy house. It’s way more fun than it sounds, and gives me hope for what Nintendo could announce. There are some excellent, but more obscure gems that never really leapt beyond the GameCube, like the creepy, Lovecraft-inspired Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem and Cubivore, in which you play a small, wild cube trying to bring color back to the world by eating other boxy creatures, winning the chance to mate, die, and be reborn over and over again until you’ve become the fittest survivor of them all. 

And all of these will be playable with a forthcoming wireless recreation of the GameCube controller, as they should be. The GameCube wasn’t an abject failure, but it sold nowhere near as well as the Wii or the Switch. There’s no guarantee that the Switch 2 will keep up the sales pace set by its predecessor, but even if it manages half that console’s sales, it could give some games a well-deserved second look. 

Last week, Apple announced that lossless audio and ultra low latency would be coming to the AirPods Max with USB-C. It was a pleasant surprise for owners of Apple’s over-ear headphones, which have fallen behind the AirPods Pro in recent years when it comes to offering new features. Unfortunately, the company seems to have hit a snag in releasing the firmware update necessary for the AirPods Max to unlock these newfound capabilities.

Firmware version 7E99 was supposed to arrive early this week alongside iOS 18.4 and macOS Sequoia 15.4. But late in the day yesterday, Apple added a “coming soon” asterisk next to the AirPods Max on a support site that lists each device’s latest firmware. Both MacRumors and 9to5Mac reported on the delay.

There’s no official word on what’s behind the hold-up, but one theory is that an error in the update file means iOS and macOS are both looking for the new AirPods Max firmware at the wrong URLs — and will need another software update of their own to resolve the problem. Yikes. Hopefully the situation gets cleared up soon.

Apple also introduced a new USB-C to 3.5mm cable for the AirPods Max last week, and it’s worth noting you can use that without any new firmware; it works right out of the box for connecting the headphones to devices with a traditional headphone jack — and it’s a pretty good cable as these things go. (You’d hope so for $39.)

Regardless, Apple needs to make the process of updating AirPods more straightforward. For years, it has just sort of happened in the background at a random moment when your iPhone and AirPods are near each other with the headphones charging. There’s no way of manually triggering an update, which runs counter to the way every other earbud maker does it. Can we get a simple “update now” button right in AirPods settings in iOS 19, please?

Thunderbird’s developers are planning to compete with Gmail and other email providers by offering paid “pro” tier services, including @thundermail.com email addresses and new services such as an appointment scheduler, file sharing tools, and some “Thunderbird Assist” AI features. You can join a beta waitlist by going to thundermail.com, which is the domain for the email addresses, along with an option for @tb.pro.

Thunderbird managing director Ryan Sipes announced that the services are in the works in a post on the Thunderbird Planning discussion group last Friday. However, it seems pretty early in development, and there are no announced tiers and pricing, though Sipes said there would be both free and paid tiers. “It is our goal to eventually have a similar offering so that a 100 percent open source, freedom-respecting alternative ecosystem is available for those who want it,” said Sipes.

Thunderbird is a long-running open source email client that originally launched in 2003 and was developed alongside Mozilla’s Firefox browser. It lost ground with the rise of Gmail and other web-based email services, but maintained a dedicated user base.

Mozilla ended development of the original Thunderbird client in 2012 and handed it off to a community group. In 2020, after renewed interest and donations, development moved to Mozilla Foundation subsidiary MZLA Technology Corporation, which has been modernizing the codebase and developing mobile clients.

Thunderbird Pro services, including Thundermail, are coming in late to the game with very few details. Unlike Gmail and Outlook, Thunderbird has never offered an email service to go with its email client. In the post, Sipes said, “It is my conviction that all of this should have been a part of the Thunderbird universe a decade ago. But it is better late than never.” It will also face popular Gmail alternatives like ProtonMail and FastMail, but with the general rise of distrust in Big Tech and concerns about privacy, maybe it doesn’t hurt to have more options.

At least two of Nintendo’s Switch 2 games are going to be more expensive than most games on the first Switch. Many Switch games cost $59.99, but Nintendo revealed today the Switch 2’s Mario Kart World, a June 5th launch title, will cost $79.99, while Donkey Kong Bananza, releasing a little over a month later, will cost $69.99.

These aren’t Nintendo’s first titles to exceed a $59.99 price. That honor goes to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which launched at $69.99. When that price was announced, Nintendo told Game Informer that “we determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis.”

Nintendo is taking some of the sting off Mario Kart World’s higher price if you get it as part of a special $499.99 Switch 2 bundle. (On its own, the Switch 2 costs $449.99.) But it appears that Nintendo’s next-generation console could have games that are generally more expensive than before.

TikTok delete

After President Donald Trump pushed back a deadline for banning TikTok in January, the 75-day delay will run out on April 5th, but there’s still no word on a deal that could satisfy the law by shifting control of TikTok away from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

The Information reports that later today, Trump plans to announce a plan for “TikTok America,” a new company with 50 percent ownership by unnamed new US investors, a one-third stake for existing ByteDance investors, and a 19.9 percent share for ByteDance. It would apparently license TikTok’s algorithm from ByteDance. 

That follows reports by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and CNBC, which added Amazon and AppLovin to a list of potential or interested buyers along with Oracle, Blackstone, former LA Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, and Perplexity. 

AppLovin is a mobile tech company worth about $100 billion that uses data and AI to collect user information and target ads, and the WSJ says that its pitch to the Trump administration is that “it could solve national security concerns and unleash economic growth as a job creator.” Amazon could be interested in TikTok’s power to drive shopping interest, after shutting down its own Inspire feed of short, vertical videos in January.

All of that is, of course, assuming TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, wants to sell. 

A reportedly favored plan for Oracle, Blackstone, Silver Lake, and other investors to make a deal is still rumored as a potential solution, but the New York Times notes that it’s still unclear whether that will satisfy the TikTok ban-or-divest law’s requirements.
With Trump also planning to announce new tariff plans on Wednesday, the WSJ reports Chinese officials are waiting to hear the details before considering anything else. Trump will reportedly meet with aides today to discuss the proposals, or the idea of trying to extend the deadline again.