It's only been one year, but somehow it seems much longer. The rumour-mongering has played out, conjectured specs have given way to hard numbers and the capabilities of the T239 processor are now understood. So, 12 months on from its remarkable launch, what do we think of the machine? Is it truly a generational leap? How important has DLSS been for the hardware and are we getting on with its questionable display?

Let's tackle the gen-on-gen upgrade and it's clear that Nintendo has managed to deliver. By taking a look at title-specific upgrades or the bespoke "Switch 2 Editions" we frequently see resolutions quadrupled in the jump to the new hardware, while doubling frame-rates. Unstable or sub-30fps presentations can now present at a locked 60 frames per second. Effectively, it's what we saw with the move from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5.

The predicted PS4 ports did indeed arrive on Switch 2, often outstripping what the last-gen versions delivered and it's been gratifying to see that while current-gen ports have necessary cutbacks, the gulf between Switch 2 and, say, PS5 seems less pronounced than Switch 1 vs PS4. Compare and contrast the original Switch's Witcher 3 port with Switch 2's Cyberpunk 2077 conversion: the former is kind of a miracle, but obviously pared back to the barebones while the latter is a fully creditable port of the benchmark game of the generation.

In moving from an off-the-shelf last-gen Tegra chip to a properly custom SoC, Switch 2 has generally delivered, despite concerns about the 8nm/10nm Samsung process node used for the T239. That chip, in combination with a 128-bit memory bus, much higher bandwidth along with Nvidia's custom RT and machine learning tech has offered clear dividends. It isn't really trading blows as such with the PS5 and Series X and some last-gen ports have been a little questionable, but the Series S comparison is more intriguing and demonstrates that DLSS ML-based upscaling has been a godsend to the Nintendo hardware.

Time and again we've seen Switch 2 titles run at much lower resolutions than Series S equivalents and yet somehow the image quality is clearly superior. The DLSS gambit in focusing on quality over quantity of pixels has paid off. Street Fighter 6 was an early standout: native 540p with DLSS looking more pleasing to the eye than Series S' native 1080p. From there, the positive results just kept on coming.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is another good example, the game's standard TAA eclipsed by a lower resolution from Switch 2. It's a fascinating example of how Switch 2's more modest hardware sidesteps the need for raw brute force performance and gives the perception of a much more capable system - and let's be honest, it's often the case that perception is reality in this business.

Ray tracing was the other big unknown with Switch 2. Our projected simulations, based on an RTX 2050 laptop GPU radically downclocked, suggested that selected RT could work well on Switch 2 - but we couldn't downclock enough to get an idea of whether mobile mode could handle it. The answer turned out to be that, yes, Switch 2 could handle it in both modes - though the deployment has to be somewhat selective.

The strongest showpieces to date are built on in-house engines: Snowdrop in Star Wars Outlaws and modern id tech in Indiana Jones. Star Wars Outlaws is perhaps the best emblematic example: RTGI and ray-traced reflections are retained, 30fps is broadly maintained, and DLSS cleans up enough of the noise that the end result feels surprisingly close to Series S during normal play. It can even look better in some scenarios.

Selective RT also means that sometimes, it's simply not needed on Switch 2. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 has a robust series of rasterised effects that still look great, so there's no real need to trade performance for fidelity. Likewise, Unreal Engine 5 titles that actually use Lumen software GI are very thin on the ground - the price to performance ratio clearly isn't worth it there (though the recently added "medium Lumen" should see this change on Switch 2).

What we generally seem to be seeing is that if a game is built from the ground up with RT as a foundational basis, there's a good chance we'll see it on Switch 2. If not, existing rasterised fallbacks are deployed - Assassin's Creed Shadows being a good example. Ports were always something of a mixed bag on Switch 1, but the general trend is that Switch 2 is in a much better place to handle some truly demanding titles. We now come to acceptance competence to the point where disappointing ports - such as Kena: Bridge of Spirits - are definitely an exception.

We're also seeing a lot of ports improve significantly from launch. Skyrim is an almost perfect example: the Anniversary Edition arrived with atrocious input lag - worse than Kinect-level latency in measurements - and a flat 30fps presentation. A subsequent update reduced latency to acceptable levels and introduced a performance mode that targets 60fps at a hit to image quality, turning a borderline unplayable release into one of the best ways to play the game portably.

Persona 3 Remake is another instructive example. At launch it suffered from poor frame-pacing, elevated input lag, middling image quality and no high-frame-rate option. Later patches added 60fps modes (at least when docked) and cleaned up the frame-pacing problems. It still makes arguably unnecessary visual cuts, and it doesn't exploit DLSS, but it's shifted from "disappointing" to "tolerable". Tomb Raider's Switch 2 edition, meanwhile, launched underwhelmingly enough to compare poorly even to the iOS version running on A17 Pro-class hardware, though ongoing updates have improved matters somewhat.

Criticisms of specific ports aren't so much down to hardware limitations or lack of effort, more because of design choices we don't necessarily agree with - things like unlocked frame-rates in Pragmata or Resident Evil Requiem and non-functional VRR in handheld mode. Beyond the RE Engine games, Hitman: World of Assassination remains problematic in terms of image quality and overall presentation, and certain JRPGs like Tales of Arise appear to struggle with frame caps and frame-pacing. But if we step back, the overall hit rate is far better than Switch 1's first year, where poor conversions were easy to find.

On the first-party side, the situation is curious. Nintendo's own Switch 2 Editions are often excellent: major upgrades to image quality, 60fps targets and, in some cases, 120fps modes. Both Zelda titles, Kirby and Metroid Prime 4 all stand out as big winners. Metroid in particular is a clear generational uplift over the original Switch version, with improved asset quality, outstanding HDR and support for higher frame-rate modes. Donkey Kong Bananza is a truly great game but at a conceptual level, perhaps isn't as divorced from its Switch 1 origins as we might have liked.

More baffling is the almost total absence of DLSS and ray tracing in Nintendo's internally developed output. Pokémon, via Game Freak, uses a "DLSS lite" configuration, but core Nintendo titles to date continue to rely on SMAA and, in some cases, older FSR implementations. That may be starting to change - the new Star Fox, with its clearly temporal solution and materially richer lighting and materials - suggests that internal engine tech is finally pivoting towards something more modern. However, bizarrely it feels like Nintendo itself is late to the party compared to what third parties are already achieving on the platform.

The hardware itself is similarly a mix of the inspired and the frustrating. The new Joy-Con design, with its magnetic attachment and improved rails, feels more robust and satisfying than the original system. The Pro Controller is one of the strongest pads in the market. Docking and undocking remain almost magical in their seamlessness. Support for 120Hz output and a well-conceived HDR pipeline in docked mode give developers room to push into territory we'd never have associated with a Nintendo handheld even a few years ago. Titles like Hades 2 and Mina the Hollower hitting 120fps on a hybrid portable system genuinely feel like a generational shift in how "handheld" action games can respond and animate.

But we're still struggling with the lacklustre LCD. Motion handling is poor to the point of off-putting for those sensitive to sample and hold blur and image persistence. Benchmarks suggest it's only twice as responsive as an original PSP - astonishing for any kind of modern LCD. The HDR side of the equation is also extremely lacking. No local dimming support and limited peak brightness turn what could have been a killer feature into a deep disappointment. As a result, for some, Switch 2 is almost the antithesis of Switch 1. The first gen hardware worked better as a handheld than it did for docked play, while the reverse is true for Switch 2 (that said, no VRR in docked configuration is another disappointment).

But Switch 2's successes aren't just improvements over the first gen console's features. Game Chat is - in our opinion - the best integrated voice system on any console, with noise cancellation so effective that players can talk into the system microphone at distance without headsets, while game audio blares from speakers, and still be intelligible. It removes the usual friction of onboarding less tech-literate players.

Meanwhile, the mouse-style infrared controls built into the Joy-Con are technically clever and well supported in launch-window curiosities like Drag x Drive and the cool implementation in Metroid Prime 4 but perhaps the use-case scenarios are too limited. In practice, if you're sitting at a desk with keyboard and mouse to hand, this is more PC territory. Meanwhile, on the sofa, the pad remains the obvious choice. Game Share, finally, is an attractive idea held back by too much image quality loss to be genuinely compelling.

By contrast, backwards compatibility is an unqualified triumph, arguably the best Nintendo has ever shipped. Original Switch titles not only run, they almost universally run better. Dynamic resolution slides hit higher ceilings and avoid ugly base res minimums, while unstable 30fps and 60fps targets are smoothed into something approaching perfection. That uplift, paired with Switch 2 patches and "Editions" for heavy-hitting first-party software dating back to 2017 shows an admirable determination to meaningfully improve evergreen catalogue titles.

Nintendo Switch Online's expansion into GameCube and Virtual Boy further cements that sense of a platform respecting its back catalogue, even if the implementation is imperfect. GameCube emulation carries a touch more latency than ideal - not great for F-Zero GX, tolerable for Wind Waker - and bundling all GameCube titles into a monolithic download will become problematic as the library grows.

However, seeing high-quality 900p GameCube output on a Nintendo handheld still feels quietly impressive. Virtual Boy support is even more surreal: when used with the dedicated headset shell, the emulation is visually close enough to the original's pure red-on-black aesthetic to feel uncanny, though no LCD solution will ever fully replicate the CRT-like motion clarity that made the real hardware so uniquely sharp in motion.

So, one year into the Switch 2 generation, the system is exactly where it needs to be. A good deal of the key Switch 1 games are radically improved on the new system, the back compat support (including the recently added "handheld boost" feature) is exceptional, while third party publisher support seems to be just as robust as it was on the last-gen console hybrid.

We're also happy to see more in the way of day-and-date ports as opposed to releases arriving months or years later, while the adoption of DLSS in both of its apparent iterations has clearly elevated many third party titles.

With that said, we do think developers should be aware of the limitations of "DLSS lite" or "tiny DLSS" compared to the "full fat" CNN model. Alex's analysis suggests that perhaps the more simplistic DLSS is best suited to handheld mode while the CNN model works best for docked play. Either way, we'd be fascinated to see a performance equalised comparison: higher resolution tiny DLSS vs lower resolution CNN model.

Beyond that, the hardware itself is accessible and elegant to use and very capable when docked bearing in mind its sub-20W power budget. It may not be as miraculously powerful as some believe, but despite the three-year-old vintage of the processor design, it's clearly not a bygone relic. It's a modern, cleverly engineered hybrid system with obvious strengths, clear weaknesses and enormous potential.

Number one on our list of improvements is a better LCD (and hopefully an OLED-based mid-gen refresh) but as things stand, Switch 2 is set up to be another long-lived success story. The year one report may not be a flawless victory, but the hardware works and the experience hits the mark - it is the upgrade we were hoping for.