Switch 2 Will Launch With Almost Twice As Many Profile Icons

For most of the original Nintendo Switch’s lifetime, I think I had a Mario profile icon for my personal account. I don’t have anything against the fireball-throwing plumber, but he’s hardly my favorite character in Nintendo’s stable of mascots. Pokémon is my go-to Nintendo series, but it weirdly took years before Nintendo made characters from the monster-taming franchise available as profile icons. These days, I’m rocking Professor Turo from Pokémon Violet, who was finally added as a Nintendo Switch Online reward for a limited time in 2022, five years after I bought my original Switch. Thankfully, it looks like Pokémon fans won’t have to wait nearly as long to get icons from the series on the Switch 2, which is launching with almost twice as many profile icons as the original system did in 2017.

Nintendo has announced that the Switch 2 will launch with 258 profile icons when the console is released on June 5. This is a huge increase from the 147 on the original Switch. Some of these were limited-time rewards over the years, but now you’ll be able to freely use them on your Switch 2 without having to earn them. This includes a bevy of Pokémon icons, as you’ll be able to choose between every starter Pokémon from all nine generations, as well as Pikachu, Eevee, and a Poké Ball. The full selection was revealed on the Nintendo Today app, and you can check it out below:

I’ll probably still be rocking my Professor Turo when I move my account to the Switch 2, but it is nice to see Nintendo offering a make-good for Pokémon fans after hiding these behind limited-time offers for so long. There’s something here for just about everyone, whether your favorite Nintendo series is one of the heavy hitters like Mario and Zelda, or you prefer to rep one of the smaller names like Arms.

We’re just a month away from the Switch 2’s launch, and people are still scrambling to get their pre-orders in after the initial online rush. Nintendo has already apologized for not having enough supply to meet all the demand, but hopefully things start to calm down shortly after the first wave.