Rumours of a Nintendo Switch Pro spread like wildfire back in 2021, right up until July of that year when the company announced the Switch OLED. Not only was that announcement a major bummer for those looking for a mid-generation upgrade for the handheld console hybrid, the company also shut down Pro variant rumours a couple of weeks after the announcement. But according to Digital Foundry, it may have been part of the company’s plan initially.
Speaking as part of the Digital Foundry Direct Weekly podcast, John Linneman said that at some point, there was a mid-generation upgrade for the Nintendo Switch planned. Linneman made the claim based on his conversations with developers, which lines up with previous reports that go along similar lines. But judging from Nintendo’s vehement denial that’s pretty out of character for the company, plans have probably changed internally sometime before the OLED model was announced.
Instead, Nintendo is likely working on its next generation hardware, which will probably still be building upon the success of the Switch. This will likely mean that it will continue the mobile console idea, which is basically the identity of the brand right now in the gaming hardware space. Fellow DF contributor Oliver Mackenzie says that this is unlikely to show up within 2023. That means an opportunity for the successor model to pack more modern hardware and tech, but whether it actually pans out that way remains to be seen. You can check out the part of the podcast that discusses all this by hitting the link below, and jumping to the 52:46 mark.
The Nintendo Switch, even in its current generation, has seen an incremental upgrade before the OLED model launched. Back in 2019 Nintendo released a variant that had a more efficient processor that increased its battery life. This would be the processor that is used in not only the Lite model that’s released around the same time, but also the newer OLED version.
(Source: Digital Foundry / YouTube)
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