Less than 24 hours after a leak claiming a brand-new Super Smash Bros. is in development for Nintendo Switch 2 spread across the gaming press, the story has already moved. The anonymous account behind the claim, known as malo932, has deleted its recent YouTube comments and swapped its display name for the single word “stop,” according to Kotaku. The underlying claim, that Nintendo is building an all-new Smash entry rather than porting Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, remains exactly where it started: unconfirmed by Nintendo, sourced to a single YouTube commenter, and impossible to verify independently. That combination, a fast-spreading rumor and a source who appears to be backing away from the spotlight, is its own story on top of the original one.
What Changed in the Last 24 Hours: The Account Goes Quiet
The malo932 leak first circulated on September 6, 2026, when the account replied to a YouTube comment on Nintendo Forecast’s channel asking whether Nintendo would simply port Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to Switch 2. VICE picked up the exchange and reported the account’s claim directly. By the morning of September 7, Kotaku reported that malo932’s comments on that channel had begun disappearing, and that the account changed its display name to “stop.” Kotaku framed the move as a reaction to the sudden attention the comments received once outlets started citing them. Nobody, including Kotaku, has confirmed why the account went quiet. It could mean the leaker got cold feet, it could mean nothing at all, or it could be an attempt to dodge scrutiny after a claim went further than intended.
What it does not do is change the underlying facts. The comments existed, multiple outlets captured screenshots and quotes before they vanished, and the claim itself is unaffected by whether the account that made it is still active. If anything, the deletion has kept the story alive for a second news cycle, pulling in outlets that missed the initial wave on September 6.
The Claim at the Center of It All
Strip away the meta-story about deleted comments and the core claim is simple. When a YouTube user asked malo932 whether Ultimate would be re-released or upgraded for Switch 2, the account replied: “No, a new Smash is in the works.” That line, attributed to malo932 and verified through VICE’s report of the exchange, is the entire quote. It says nothing about a release window, a roster, a subtitle, or a development studio. It asserts one thing only, that whatever comes next in the Smash Bros series is a new game, not a Switch 2 remaster of Ultimate.
That distinction matters more than it might look. Nintendo has already shown it is willing to bring Switch-era hits forward to Switch 2 with light upgrades, and a Smash Ultimate port would have been a low-risk way to fill a gap in the fighting-game category on new hardware. A ground-up sequel is a different commitment entirely, one that implies years of roster planning, netcode work, and balance testing that a straight port would skip. If malo932 is right, Nintendo is choosing the harder, slower path over the easy one. If malo932 is wrong or simply guessing, it is a claim with no downside for the leaker, since a project this large would take years to disprove either way.
Who Is malo932, and Why Anyone Is Listening
malo932 is not an established name in the Nintendo leak community the way names like NateTheHate or Zippo are. The account’s credibility, such as it is, rests entirely on a short string of earlier calls that reportedly landed before official confirmation: a claim that a “classic” Star Fox project and a Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake were both in the pipeline for 2026, and a claim that Nintendo would hold two Directs in short succession this month. My Nintendo News, which covered the original leak on September 6, noted that these earlier calls preceded NateTheHate’s own reporting on the same topics, which is part of why the new claim spread as quickly as it did.
None of that amounts to a vetted track record. Two or three correct guesses in a hobby built on thousands of guesses is not statistically rare, and outlets covering the story have been careful to hedge their framing accordingly. EventHubs, for instance, described malo932 as a “credible leaker” in its headline while still labeling the entire claim a rumor throughout the article. That is the state of the story as of today: taken seriously enough to cover, not confirmed enough to report as fact.
Nintendo Still Hasn’t Said a Word
Nintendo has not issued any statement addressing the Smash Bros claim, the Nintendogs claim, or the leak more broadly. That silence is standard practice. Nintendo almost never comments on unverified leaks before it is ready to announce something on its own terms, and commenting at all, even to deny a rumor, tends to draw more attention to it. Readers should treat the absence of a denial as meaningless. It is neither confirmation nor pushback, just Nintendo doing what Nintendo always does.
Timing: Two Directs Land This Week
The leak’s timing is not a coincidence, or at least it lines up too neatly to ignore. Nintendo has two broadcasts scheduled this week: a Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on September 8, and a general Nintendo Direct on September 9 at 7:00 a.m. PT, running roughly 45 minutes and focused on the winter Switch 2 lineup, according to ComicBook and Notebookcheck. Leaks tend to cluster around Direct dates because leakers, real or not, know a broadcast is the one moment outlets and fans are primed to believe almost anything. If Nintendo does address the fighting-game gap in its lineup, September 9 is the most likely venue. If the Direct comes and goes without a mention, that silence will be read by the fan community as evidence the leak was premature, wrong, or scheduled for a much later reveal.
Why “Not a Port” Changes the Calculus for Switch 2
Switch 2’s software lineup so far leans heavily on ports and remasters: enhanced re-releases of Switch-era games, backward-compatible libraries, and upgraded editions rather than a wave of built-from-scratch exclusives. That approach makes sense early in a console’s life, since ports are cheaper and faster to ship than new games, but it does not answer the question of what makes Switch 2 worth buying on its own merits a year or more into its lifecycle. A brand-new Smash Bros, if real, would be one of the few projects capable of doing that on its own, given the series’ history as a system-selling title. A port of Ultimate would not carry the same weight, since most of the built-in Switch install base already owns a copy.
The Money Behind the Rumor: What Ultimate’s Sales Numbers Say
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has sold 37.76 million units as of March 31, 2026, after adding roughly 320,000 units in the most recent reporting period, according to Nintendo’s own figures as reported by EventHubs. That makes it the best-selling entry in the Smash Bros. series and the third best-selling game on the original Switch behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Ultimate is also still drawing an estimated 1.42 million monthly active players as of June 2026, which is an unusually long tail for a game that launched in 2018 (EventHubs). Those numbers cut both ways for the rumor. They prove there is enormous commercial appetite for whatever Nintendo does next with the franchise, which supports the idea that Nintendo would want to build something new rather than dilute the brand with a port. They also prove Ultimate itself is nowhere near dead, which removes any urgency for Nintendo to rush a follow-up onto shelves.
A Short History of How Long Smash Bros Actually Takes to Build
Each mainline Smash Bros. entry has arrived years apart, reflecting the scale of the work involved in building and balancing a growing fighting-game roster while also negotiating licensing for guest characters from outside franchises. Ultimate itself took roughly two years of dedicated development after Smash 4 wrapped its post-launch support, and it reused a meaningful amount of code and assets from its predecessor to hit that window. A true ground-up sequel, without a prior Switch-generation Smash to borrow from as directly, would plausibly take longer, not shorter. That is the practical argument against reading too much into a same-generation release: even if malo932’s claim is accurate today, “in development” and “coming soon” are very different phrases, and nothing in the leak specifies which one applies.
Nintendogs Rides Along as the Rumor’s Quieter Half
The same leak cycle includes a second, lower-profile claim: that Nintendogs, the pet-simulation series last seeing a mainline release during the 3DS generation, is also coming back. VICE was the outlet that connected malo932’s earlier, vaguer August comment about a “dormant” Nintendo franchise to Nintendogs specifically. Compared to a new Smash Bros, a new Nintendogs would be a far smaller technical lift, no competitive balance testing, no roster negotiations, no online netcode demands anywhere close to a fighting game’s. That makes it the more plausible of the two claims to appear first if either is real, and a useful signal to watch for at this week’s Directs independent of what happens with Smash.
Market Impact: Switch 2 Needs a Software Story Beyond Ports
Investors and analysts have spent much of 2026 scrutinizing Switch 2’s software pipeline, not its hardware sales. A console can sell well out of the gate on hardware enthusiasm alone, but sustaining that pace requires exclusive software that gives existing owners a reason to keep buying and gives holdouts a reason to finally upgrade. A new Smash Bros. would be one of the few announcements capable of moving that needle by itself, given the franchise’s crossover appeal beyond the core Nintendo fanbase. That is precisely why a rumor with this little hard evidence behind it has traveled so far, so fast: it plugs directly into the exact gap in Switch 2’s current lineup that the market has been the most vocal about.
Competitive Landscape: The Platform Fighter Genre Nintendo Would Re-Enter
Smash Bros. does not exist in a vacuum, even if it has always dominated the platform fighter genre it popularized. Warner Bros.’ MultiVersus, a free-to-play competitor built on licensed characters from across the WB portfolio, shut down its live-service support on May 30, 2025, after reaching more than 10 million players at its peak, according to GameDeveloper. It remains playable offline only. Rivals of Aether II, an independent platform fighter, has kept a small but active community on Steam, with concurrent player counts in the hundreds rather than the millions, per Tracker Network’s Steam population data. Neither comes close to threatening Smash Ultimate’s install base or its still-active 1.42 million monthly players. That gap is exactly why any credible signal of a new Smash entry draws this much attention: there is effectively no competitive pressure forcing Nintendo’s hand, which means whatever Nintendo does next with the franchise will be done on its own timeline, not a rival’s.
How This Leak Cycle Stacks Up Against Past Nintendo Rumors
Nintendo leak cycles tend to follow a familiar shape: an anonymous claim surfaces in a low-visibility venue like a YouTube comment or a forum post, gaming outlets pick it up within a day or two, the source’s history gets scrutinized in public, and the cycle either resolves at the next Direct or fades into the background until the next rumor replaces it. What is unusual here is not the claim itself but the speed of the secondary story, the leaker appearing to retreat from the spotlight within roughly 24 hours of the first reports. That kind of behavior is rare enough to become its own talking point, separate from whether the original claim holds up.
What Nintendo Has Actually Confirmed for Switch 2 This Year
It helps to separate what is rumored from what Nintendo has actually put on the calendar. The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on September 8 and the general Nintendo Direct on September 9 are both real, scheduled broadcasts, not leaks, confirmed directly by Nintendo and covered by ComicBook and Notebookcheck. Nintendo has described the September 9 broadcast as focused on the winter Switch 2 lineup, running about 45 minutes. Nothing in Nintendo’s own promotional language for either Direct mentions Smash Bros, Nintendogs, or any fighting-game announcement. That does not rule the rumor out. Nintendo has a long history of holding its biggest reveals for the final minutes of a Direct without any prior hint in the marketing copy. It does mean that, as of publication, there is a real gap between what Nintendo has scheduled and what the leak claims will eventually show up.
That gap is worth sitting with for a moment. Fans have learned to read Direct run times and framing language for clues, and a 45-minute broadcast billed around winter releases leaves less room for a splashy new-franchise reveal than a longer, open-ended Direct would. If a new Smash Bros. is close enough to announce, September 9 is a plausible venue but not a guaranteed one. It could just as easily be held for a dedicated Smash-only Direct later in the year, the way Nintendo has handled major single-franchise reveals in the past.
Reading the Room: Why Fans Want This to Be True
Part of why this leak traveled as fast as it did has less to do with malo932’s credibility and more to do with what fans already wanted to hear. Ultimate is nearly eight years old, and while its player numbers remain strong for a game of that age, a long-running competitive community naturally wants new stages, new characters, and a reason to relearn matchups rather than replay the same meta indefinitely. A straight port would have given Switch 2 owners a resolution and frame-rate bump and little else. A ground-up sequel promises the kind of reset that keeps a fighting-game scene alive for another console generation, which is exactly why “not a port” is the detail every outlet led with, rather than any specific feature or character claim, of which the leak offered none.
Coverage Timeline: How the Story Has Moved
| Date | Development | Reported By |
|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | malo932 hints a dormant Nintendo franchise is returning; later identified as Nintendogs | VICE |
| September 6, 2026 | malo932 replies “No, a new Smash is in the works” to a YouTube comment about a possible Ultimate port | VICE, My Nintendo News |
| September 6-7, 2026 | Story spreads across gaming press; malo932 described as a “credible leaker” given prior correct calls | EventHubs, Notebookcheck |
| September 7, 2026 | malo932 deletes recent YouTube comments and renames the account “stop” | Kotaku |
| September 8, 2026 | Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct airs | ComicBook |
| September 9, 2026 | General Nintendo Direct airs (~45 minutes), focused on the winter Switch 2 lineup | ComicBook |
Platform Fighter Landscape: Where Smash Bros Stands
| Title | 2026 Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Super Smash Bros. Ultimate | Active, 37.76M units sold as of March 31, 2026 | Best-selling entry in the series; third best-selling Switch game overall, per EventHubs/Nintendo figures |
| MultiVersus (Warner Bros.) | Live service shut down May 30, 2025 | Reached 10M+ players at peak before shutdown; offline mode only remains |
| Rivals of Aether II | Active, small indie community | Concurrent Steam player counts in the hundreds, per Tracker Network data |
| Rumored new Smash Bros. (Switch 2) | Unconfirmed | Claimed to be a new entry, not an Ultimate port; no roster, studio, or release window disclosed |
Predictions: What Happens Next
- Nintendo stays silent through both this week’s Directs rather than directly addressing the leak, consistent with its long-standing policy of not commenting on unverified rumors.
- If a new Smash Bros. is real, expect it to land later in the Switch 2 lifecycle rather than in the next twelve months, given the scale of work a ground-up sequel requires compared with Ultimate’s shorter, code-reusing development cycle.
- Nintendogs, being the technically simpler claim, is more likely to surface in an announcement before any new Smash Bros. does, if either claim proves accurate.
- malo932’s deleted comments will keep the story circulating in leak-tracking communities for days regardless of whether Nintendo ever confirms or denies anything, since the deletion itself is now treated as evidence of something by parts of the fan base.
- Any future official confirmation of a new Smash Bros. would move more market and investor attention toward Switch 2’s software pipeline than the original leak has, since a confirmed AAA exclusive carries far more weight than an anonymous comment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a new Super Smash Bros. game confirmed for Nintendo Switch 2?
No. The claim comes from a single anonymous YouTube commenter, malo932, and Nintendo has not confirmed or commented on it in any capacity.
Who is malo932?
An anonymous account not previously known as an established Nintendo insider. Its credibility rests on a small number of reportedly correct earlier calls, including claims about a Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and a “classic” Star Fox project, according to My Nintendo News.
Why did malo932 delete their YouTube comments?
Kotaku reported the comments began disappearing and the account’s display name changed to “stop” shortly after the leak gained wide coverage. No official reason has been given.
Is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate being ported to Nintendo Switch 2?
Not according to this leak. malo932’s claim specifically states a new game is in development rather than a port or upgraded edition of Ultimate.
What is Nintendogs, and why is it part of this story?
Nintendogs is a dormant Nintendo pet-simulation series last seeing a mainline release on 3DS. VICE linked an earlier, vaguer malo932 comment about a returning dormant franchise to Nintendogs specifically.
When is the next Nintendo Direct?
Nintendo has two broadcasts scheduled this week: a Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on September 8, 2026, and a general Nintendo Direct on September 9, 2026, focused on the winter Switch 2 lineup, per ComicBook.
How well is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate still selling?
Ultimate has sold 37.76 million units as of March 31, 2026, and still draws an estimated 1.42 million monthly active players as of June 2026, according to Nintendo’s disclosed figures as reported by EventHubs.
Should this leak be treated as reliable?
Outlets are covering it because of the account’s short prior track record, but it remains an unverified rumor sourced to a single anonymous commenter, and readers should treat every specific detail as unconfirmed until Nintendo says otherwise.
