Nintendo revealed the Switch 2 but didn’t show us how to play it

Nintendo released the first trailer for the Nintendo Switch in 2016. The roughly three-and-a-half-minute-long video focused largely on people playing the console in different scenarios in the real world. Although the trailer likely aimed to showcase the flexibility and adaptability of a console with both handheld and TV connectivity capabilities, it ended up showing some pretty goofy — and seemingly unlikely — scenarios where people could play the Nintendo Switch. At one point two women bust out a Switch at a rooftop party in the fading daylight of early evening to play a game as a crowd of people holding red plastic cups huddles around to watch. In another moment, a person plays a Switch in the park as he walks his dog.

Nintendo has shared very little about the Switch 2 and has left experts to speculate on important questions regarding its price point and internal hardware specs. But out of all the important questions that currently linger, I’m focused on burning ones like: Would an outdoor rooftop party be a suitable setting for my Switch 2? and Would my dog be OK if I brought my Switch 2 to play along for a walk?

Questions like these seem silly, and they are a little bit, but they’re also not.

Showing the console being used is a clear way to demonstrate its main features and show how the creators imagine people will use a console. Sure, the idea that someone would play the original Switch in a loud outdoor setting might have seemed silly at the time, but it at least underscored its portability and show how the individual Joy-Con controllers would work when shared. If we saw people play the Switch 2, we could get key insight on lingering ambiguities, like whether or not its Joy-Con will have the functionality of a computer mouse, and just how big the console will be.

So while the scenarios seemed a bit off at the time, I was finding myself missing all those weirdos who play Nintendo Switch on the rooftop as I watched the Switch 2’s big reveal.