Our Big Nintendo Switch 2 Interview with Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted on April 3, 2025, prior to Nintendo’s announcement about delaying Switch 2 pre-orders in the United States due to the potential impact of tariffs. Parts of this interview were edited for clarity.

Nintendo has finally pulled back the curtain on Nintendo Switch 2, revealing the company’s vision for its next-generation console and its games. But overshadowing dicussion around what the Switch 2 is capable of, the new gameplay mechanics in Mario Kart World, and OG Switch games that will find a new lease of life on Switch 2, is a backlash to Nintendo’s pricing strategy.

We sat down with Nintendo of America’s Vice President of Product and Player Experience Bill Trinen to talk about the big first-party reveals like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, the strategy behind pricing Switch 2 at $450 and Mario Kart at $80, the decision to release Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour as a paid digital product rather than a pack-in game, his excitement for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s mouse controls and Masahiro Sakurai’s return to the Kirby franchise, and more. Plus, does Bill know what Switch 2 cartridges taste like? Read our full interview below to find out.

IGN: Congrats on finally unveiling Nintendo Switch 2. How does it feel to finally have it out there?

Bill Trinen: Well, it’s just exciting to be able to get all the details out there. For us, the most important thing is that we really want people to recognize and understand that Nintendo Switch 2 is the true successor to Nintendo Switch, takes what you love about Nintendo Switch, and then builds on it with a whole lot of new features and new capabilities and new games that take advantage of those. And really takes what has evolved gaming with Nintendo into something that’s a lot more social through things like GameChat, which takes what was the anytime, anywhere play of Nintendo Switch and makes it more all together, anytime, anywhere.

IGN: So you just mentioned GameChat, that was a huge part of your presentation yesterday. Why was now the time to finally introduce Nintendo voice chat, which is something that people have wanted on your consoles for a really long time?

Trinen: Well, I would say we’ve always looked at it from the perspective of, ‘what is Nintendo’s real strength and what are Nintendo’s real values?’ And for us, the most important thing is putting smiles on people’s faces and doing it in a way that people can see and experience the smiles that they have with the people that are most important to them.

And certainly there have been other game systems with chat and things like that up until now, but what we wanted to do was to take something that could finally replicate that same room, couch multiplayer, couch co-op experience and joy, and bring that into an online space. And so for us, GameChat is why it’s so important is the combination of being able to see their faces, being able to see what they’re doing from a gameplay perspective and being able to feel like you’ve finally got a virtual space where you can have those same experiences that you might have in your living room. So that’s why with the power of, I would say Switch 2, being able to finally execute that has been a big focus for us.

IGN: Cool. And we always knew if you did voice chat, it would be in the most Nintendo way, and just with the camera and the mic on the unit in the dock and you say, ‘oh, don’t worry the background noise won’t get in.’ It was a cool presentation.

Trinen: Good. And that’s the nice thing is with the built-in microphone, it’s like, yeah, you can just voice chat if you want and you can do that portably as well.

IGN: Well, let’s talk about Donkey Kong Bananza. I love the title by the way, it’s perfect. Although last night when I was scrambling to type my preview, it autocorrected to ‘Bonanza’ every time, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to add this to my dictionary.’ But I love the name and it’s so exciting to see DK back in the spotlight after so long. And I noticed so many things just getting my hands on the controller for the first time. So when you guys got this game in at Nintendo of America, what stuck out to you the most? What was your favorite part about working on it from a localization perspective or anything else?

Trinen: Well, so I’ll start with a really terrible joke, which is I like to call this the most groundbreaking game in video game history.

IGN: [Laughs] I used that in my preview today. I said, ‘you have to break all the ground you can because you might make a groundbreaking discovery.’

Trinen: [Laughs] That’s right. So for us, the number one thing that I think is probably just the most satisfying about this game is just DK the character. He’s back, he’s back in a big way. And DK is a character within the pantheon of Nintendo characters who has always been a bit on the more powerful side, wild at times, silly.

And all of that has just been thoroughly baked into this game. And as the character DK, you’re able to use the power of his punches and you might attack an enemy in the environment, and that enemy goes flying and hits a wall and the wall crumbles and you see something there, and that then entices you to go in and start digging through the terrain to see what else you can find back there. And it just creates this incredibly rewarding cycle of destruction and discovery that is woven all throughout the game.

IGN: The discovery via destruction was a really cool cornerstone of this game from my time with it. I thought that was just really great. And the second that I started playing it, I just felt the DNA of Super Mario Odyssey and Mr. [Yoshiaki] Koizumi’s team all over this in so many ways. Are they the ones that are working on this?

Trinen: It’s a very good question. You’ll have to stay tuned. We always like to start by showcasing the game and getting people focused on the gameplay, but we’ll have some information to share about the developer in due time.

IGN: Okay. Can you tell me, is this internally developed? Because there hasn’t been an internal Donkey Kong game since I believe Jungle Beat was the last one?

Trinen: Jungle Beat was the last one.

IGN: You had the NST (Nintendo Software Technology) do the Mario vs. Donkey Kongs, but…

Trinen: NST has done the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games, but this is going to be a fun one.

IGN: So nothing more on that?

Trinen: Nothing more on that yet.

IGN: Okay. I had to try. Let’s talk about Mario Kart World, because there’s so much great stuff in there, but I think the cow is what’s stealing everybody’s heart. Did you expect that reaction? There’s Akira memes about the cow, it’s hilarious out there. Did you know the cow was going to be a big star?

Trinen: I would say perhaps not as big as the cow has become. Internally, certainly the very first moment that we saw the cow, everybody wanted to play as Cow.

IGN: When we were playing Knockout Tour yesterday, there were just like seven cows on the track.

Trinen: Well, that’s the other thing that I just love about Mario Kart World is with the interconnected world of tracks, as I’m driving, you’ll start something like Knockout Tour and you’ll be driving across the continent. And what used to be the Mario Kart model was there’s discrete tracks and you race on a discrete track and then you choose a different track and you race on a different discrete track.

And now what I find is I’m driving through, I’m starting in a new track and driving across the terrain and, ‘Oh, I just happened to pass through Moo Moo Meadows and now I’m onto the next thing.’ And it’s just like for somebody that’s grown up playing Mario Kart for so many years, just to be able to have that experience and piece it all together mentally into this big massive continent of racing has been a whole lot of fun for me.

IGN: It feels like a theme park of Mario Kart history, and I’m driving yesterday and going through all the different segments and then all of a sudden, ‘Oh, I’m in the geyser tunnel from Dino Dino Jungle from Double Dash.’ But I’m wondering, so right now it seems like the races, you start at one track and end up at another, and then the final lap is one loop around that final circuit you end up at. Not in the Knockout Tour, that’s different, but is there a time trial or versus race mode that’s a way to just do three laps at this track? Or are you always driving interconnected between them when you’re racing?

Trinen: You will have abilities to drive three laps on certain tracks. Obviously we’ve got a Nintendo Direct dedicated to Mario Kart World coming. I think you’ll see a lot more on the game there, and I think a lot more that will hopefully surprise you and make you really feel like, ‘Wow, there’s a lot to this game.’

IGN: That will be really good to see. Because right now it looks great, it plays great, but I think the talk of the town is the price tag. This is an $80 game from Nintendo in the United States and $50 if you buy the Nintendo Switch 2 bundle. But I saw somewhere on your website that that bundle is only available for a limited time while supplies last. Can you just talk about the strategy behind pricing Mario Kart World this way?

Trinen: Well, I would say it’s less about the strategy of pricing Mario Kart World, it’s more just whenever we look at a given game, we just look at what is the experience, and what’s the content, and what’s the value? Mario Kart World, I think especially as you see from the Nintendo Direct, not to give you any hints or anything, but I did read your article this morning and I think you had mentioned that you didn’t find a lot to discover when roaming around. So I would say tune into our Mario Kart Direct to see what, maybe you’ll be able to find out about that.

But honestly, this is a game that is so big and so vast and you will find so many little things in it to discover. And there’s still some other secrets remaining that I think as people end up buying and playing the game, they’re going to find this to be probably the richest Mario Kart experience they’ve ever had.

IGN: Okay. And to just stay on pricing for a little bit here. I’m looking at the Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of games and some games are $70, some are $80. That’s what it’s looking like right now. And some are cheaper than that too. I don’t think we know the U.S. price for the Welcome Tour yet, but I think we saw the Japanese price is around $10.

Trinen: Yeah, the U.S. price is $9.99 for the Welcome Tour.

IGN: $9.99. Okay, digital only.

Trinen: Yes.

IGN: I’m just wondering about the strategy behind pricing these Nintendo Switch 2 Editions at the combination of the Switch 1 retail price, usually $59.99, and then whatever that upgrade path is, like $10 for Breath of the Wild, making that a $70 game, or Tears of the Kingdom is an $80 game because it’s $70 plus the $10 upgrade path. Can you just walk me through the strategy behind not offering any sort of discount for newcomers on Switch 2 and saying, ‘Tears of the Kingdom is $80 now just like Mario Kart is?’

Trinen: Well, again, what I would say is that we just look at each individual game and we look at the content and the value of that game, and then we say, ‘what is the right price for the value of this entertainment?’ What I would probably counter to some of that is that really what you’re looking at is for the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, that’s the physical price for somebody that has not bought the base game.

For somebody who has bought Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the Wild, the upgrade packs for those are $9.99. And if you happen to be a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack member, both of the Zelda upgrade packs are inclusive within that membership. So there’s no additional charge for those. But I think overall, our general approach is really just focus on what’s the content, what’s the value, and what’s an appropriate price based on that.

IGN: Okay, thanks. And then the pricing for the console itself, too. A lot of people are talking about it — $450 in the United States, and we know there are definitely global economic factors at play. Can you share anything behind the strategy for pricing of the console? Was this something that was up to the wire where you didn’t know what it was going to cost until recently? Can you share any insight?

Trinen: Can’t really share insight into any of that. Obviously the cost of everything goes up over time, and I personally would love if the cost of things didn’t go up over time. But I think any time you’re building a new system that’s got new features and new tech, there’s costs associated with that. So again, we look at what is the experience on Nintendo Switch? What’s the experience on Nintendo Switch 2? What are the new features that it offers? And certainly there’s the cost of goods and things that factor into that, but we try to find the right appropriate price for a product based on that.

IGN: Last question on price, I promise. I played Welcome Tour on the show floor and I walked away and thought, ‘this is a perfect pack-in game.’ It shows what the console is, it shows HDR, it shows these new technologies Nintendo is embracing — in some cases for the first time — and I feel like it’s a great showcase for the console. Was there ever any talk of making this a pack-in game, and why did you make the decision to price it as a separate digital product?

Trinen: It’s an interesting product. We’re actually getting ready today, we’re going to be doing some Nintendo Treehouse Live segments and covering a lot of games in detail. That’s one of them. And I think people will be able to see through Treehouse Live probably a little bit more maybe than you were able to see on the show floor. It’s a pretty robust piece of software. There’s a lot of great detail in there.

For some people, I think there are people who are particularly interested in the tech and the specs of the system and things like that, for them I think it’s going to be a great product. It’s really for people that want more information about the system rather than necessarily a quick intro to everything it does. And for that reason and just the amount of care and work that the team put into it, I think it was decided that, ‘Yeah, this feels like $9.99 is not an exorbitant price. It feels like a good value for what you’re getting out of the product.’

IGN: Okay. I want to talk about some of the features of the Joy-Con 2 now because I was really impressed with the mouse functionality. I thought that it worked really, really well in something like Metroid Prime 4. I can see that being the preferred way for a lot of people to play that game. So what are your expectations for mouse controls? Are you hoping that third-party developers make great use of them? Do you think it can bring new types of games? Just talk to me about your feelings about the mouse.

Trinen: Well, personally, I’m really excited about the mouse control. I don’t know what your experience with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was, the way that to me is probably my favorite way to play is I like to play split Joy-Con. I just like the freedom of having my hands not locked onto a controller like that. So I often like to play split Joy-Con and having the freedom to just seamlessly drop the mouse down for combat and then pick it back up for split Joy-Con, to me is something, number one, you can’t do with any other console, you can’t do on PC.

And it makes for a really great experience for the Prime series, particularly because the Prime series is the creator of the first-person adventure genre. And so in a series where you’re doing a lot of exploration that’s got some combat mixed in with it, that freedom feels right. Because for me, I feel like if I’m doing a lot of exploration, I want to be split Joy-Con. That flexibility to me is amazing.

I think the other thing that probably I’m hoping people are catching onto is that, yes, the Joy-Con 2 introduced mouse control, but they introduce mouse control in conjunction with the other technology within the Joy-Con. So whereas with a PC mouse, you’re moving up and down and side to side and whatnot, with the Joy-Con, you’ve got the added ability to apply things like the angle that you’re twisting the Joy-Con at, and having that also impact the play control with the mouse.

Or you’ve got two Joy-Con that have mouse control each, and that means two things. It means either you can have immediate two-player mouse control gameplay right out of the box with the Nintendo Switch 2, or it means, as we see with Drag x Drive, that you can do things with dual Joy-Con control, which hasn’t been done before. And so my hope is really threefold. One, is that our own development teams continue to experiment with what they can do with the mouse to create creative new ways to use it.

I hope that we start to see third-parties that are then looking at opportunities with things like dual mouse control or combination of mouse plus motion control to evolve their gameplay. But I also do hope that when you look at PC developers, for example, if they want to bring a PC-based game to console, they have to spend a lot of time revamping the control scheme and adapting it to button controls. And so having the freedom of mouse control with the Joy-Con hopefully makes PC developers a lot more eager to want to bring their games to Nintendo Switch 2.

IGN: Well, my social team really wants to know. We don’t have Switch 2 cartridges here. Do they taste like Switch 1 cartridges?

Trinen: [Laughs] I don’t know yet.

IGN: You haven’t done a taste test?

Trinen: I have not done a taste test. I keep hoping for pistachio flavor, but that’s not happening.

IGN: [Laughs] I don’t think that would turn away the kids. Okay, cool. Well, my last question here is that Kirby Air Riders was a huge surprise at the Nintendo Direct yesterday. And to see that is this secret project that Mr. [Masahiro] Sakurai teased earlier this year after wrapping up his YouTube series. Cool to see him come back to work with you guys again. Can you share any details further than that teaser we got in the Direct?

Trinen: Well, I believe Mr. Sakurai has said that there will not be any additional information on the game for quite a while. The team’s working very hard on it. But for me, this was probably one of the most exciting announcements for a couple of reasons.

One, I’m always excited to see what Sakurai-san is working on. Two, he created the Kirby character and the Kirby franchise. And so it’s great to see him come back to lead and direct a Kirby game again for the first time in a couple of decades. But I think more importantly, I’ve always felt that Kirby Air Ride on GameCube was a game that was ahead of its time and maybe not fully understood at the time that it came out.

And so I’m just really excited because there’s a core group of people that played that game on GameCube that love it to death. And number one, I’m just happy because for them, this is such a big announcement and it’s so good to see their excitement. But at the same time, I think that with where we are in the game industry today, I think we’ve got a real opportunity to introduce a much bigger audience to Kirby Air Riders. And I think people will finally really begin to appreciate just what I think is the genius of Masahiro Sakurai and what he created with that game.

IGN: Well, I’m in that core group. It’s like one of my big childhood games. I love Kirby Air Ride, City Trial Free Roam. That’s all I was doing, so I’m very excited. But thanks so much, Bill. We’re super excited for June 5 and everything else that’s coming on the way.

Trinen: Great. Thank you.

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN’s Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him on Bluesky @LoganJPlant.