According to an April 2025 interview for Nintendo's Ask the Developers column, the decision to design the Nintendo Switch 2 as a more powerful version of the original Nintendo Switch was due to a desire to give developers greater creative freedom with the Switch family's base concepts. According to Takuhiro Dohta, who directed the console's development:


Kouichi Kawamoto, the producer for the Switch 2's development, further explained the decision to move away from the Blue Ocean approach that defined Nintendo's hardware during the presidency of Satoru Iwata, in which systems would focus on unconventional control schemes that would permit them to stand out from competitors. He claimed that the idea was an expansion upon Nintendo's internal philosophy with the original Switch, in which they prioritized designing accessible features that could be used in any game for the console "rather than tasking software developers to create gameplay experiences that incorporate the hardware's unique features." Kawamoto stated that games such as Ring Fit Adventure demonstrated the viability of moving unconventional control schemes to accessories rather than the base console, while Dohta called the Switch 2 an amalgamation of the best features from previous Nintendo systems.