My guess is, maybe the numbers were just starting to dip a little bit & so Nintendo have announced this “refresh” to get the Switch back in the headlines & perk those monthly sales figures up again.
I’m not actually sure that we’re getting the long rumoured Switch Pro now. It’s possible they couldn’t get it together, with how much it would’ve cost to manufacture fighting against the acceptable retail price. They could just ride this train for another couple of years, on the back of big titles like Breath of the Wild 2, then jump straight on to the Switch 2.
Which would actually make things simpler for me as a Nintendo fan. I would’ve snapped up a Switch Pro that was more powerful, so the games would’ve looked & played better. Now I’m fine waiting.
People expecting an actual upgrade imo were delusional, including Schreier&co at Bloomberg. Nintendo has found a way to gouge customers without even losing money on the hardware (and an hypotetical Swith Pro would have been a sure loss in the immediate), why would they change their business model? They never were forward thinking in the first place, so sky has to crumble down like with WiiU before they even think to change direction.
According to Rich Ledbetter, a Switch Pro or ‘Super Switch’ is still in development, even though this isn’t it. That’s reassuring at least, as he isn’t your standard loose-lipped ‘insider’:
Lol that just reminds me of the Battlefield 5 thing where one of the devs said if you don’t like the game just don’t buy it. I get these are their babies and probably find the backlash hard to take but that’s just digging a hole lol. I hope they do see the thirst for the enhanced Switch and speed it up a bit if they are just casually going about it.
Of course Nintendo is working on their next hardware. Thats not a very insightful take. People at Xbox are also working on its next hardware right now.
But lets remember, what smug Insiders tried to tell us about the Switch Pro. I never really believed it, because Nintendo always does the bare minimum for hardware specs.
It depends on what ‘in development’ means I guess.
If it means, ‘Releasing 2022’, then those insiders can still be partially correct, but were conflating two rumours – the OLED upgraded old Switch, and the one with new chips.
If it’s ‘in development’ in the same way that the PS6 and Xbox Series One X Pro 360 (or whatever ridiculous name they give the next one), then they were talking shit, or had at least been talked shit to by sources they trusted.
I personally feel it’s the former. That leaks came out about this upgrade and about the next gen version and those being leaked to made the incorrect assumption that they were all discussing the same hardware.
Whenever new Nintendo hardware does come out, someday, it’ll be “Well I got the main part right, just some of the details changed.” Basically as long as Nintendo doesn’t go out of business, the insiders will consider themselves ‘vindicated.’ Nice little setup lol.
My guess is the initial Bloomberg report came from a reliable source, but the source turned out to just be wrong or plans actually did change… Then you get a bunch of these random Twitter people chiming in with BS “Yup, that lines up with what I heard too…” type of takes based on nothing.
tfw it gets increasingly likely Switch will never officially release in your country and the honest to god option to go with is a full blown emulator on PC that ends up giving a superior docked experience anyway
nope, it’s just imported here from what I know of. It’s worse when Switch has documented persistent issues like Joycon drift and all that, which would require an active and robust repair and servicing infrastructure which isn’t there, making it even more difficult to want to invest in an imported switch either.
In most aspects, Nintendo is really so far behind their competitors that is hurts, lol. They are in a very confortable position, and they seem to be so slow to innovate when it comes to basic aspects like stores and online experiences.