While a year ago, a Switch Pro (or 4K) seemed to be able to be launched soon, the project would be buried at Nintendo. The Japanese giant would be flexing his muscles for the big jump that awaits him, after such a success.
The holiday season has passed, and if you have followed the news a little, you must have noticed that there has not been a new Switch to slip under your tree. Since the October 2021 launch of the Switch OLED, a very pleasant update to Nintendo’s hybrid console, Big N has been releasing games and continuing to bring its Switches to life (classic, Lite and OLED, therefore), but the front of the hardware remains desperately… balding.
No Switch Pro
To the point, moreover, that those who hoped to see a Switch Pro or 4K arrive are starting to ask serious questions. No longer worth the wait, apparently. According to the latest weekly podcast from DigitalFoundry, Nintendo has abandoned the idea of a Switch Pro, after having actually tackled it for a while. The media specializing in gaming and hardware analysis indicates that, according to several sources among developers, a mid-cycle hardware update for the Switch was indeed considered before it was finally abandoned.
It is quite possible that this project was shelved in the last year, perhaps a little before, since the last rumors and / or leaks concerning it date back about a year.
According to the highly respected John Linneman of DigitalFoundry, one of the reasons for this abandonment could be that Nintendo is worried about another failed generational transition. The GameCube, attractive as it was, did not meet the expected fate. The Wii then met with colossal success, before another failure, with the Wii U, which only sold around 13 million units worldwide… Then success returned with the Switch, which, in a way, is a second generation Wii U Gamepad that would have ingested the console to be independent…
A very dated configuration
Launched in March 2017, the original Switch is nearing the end of its career. Sold at almost 120 million units since its debut, the console continues to ensure good sales which, despite everything, are beginning to decrease.
It must be said that its Tegra X1 Custom chip could still create illusions in its infancy, but clearly shows its limits in a market where all the other consoles are flirting with 4K, and where smartphones are preparing to enter the world in turn. era of ray tracing.
So, we can say without taking too much risk that the successor to the Switch will be much more powerful, at least twice, if we take a look at the different chips that Nvidia produces. Which is interesting, because it would, in theory at least, guarantee some backward compatibility between the Switch and the next step, which we won’t call Switch U, so as not to jinx it. But as the team of DigitalFoundrybetween a little more power and more autonomy, Nintendo will always choose the second option.
For after…
And this remark from the experts of DigitalFoundry is interesting in more ways than one, in particular because it assumes that the replacement for the Switch will necessarily be portable… We cannot give the wrong to this a priori, but we like to think that Nintendo has very original ideas in head, which could run counter to our expectations.
The question of the aftermath is therefore essential, and the answer that Nintendo will have to provide is not simple.
It is indeed hard to imagine Big N returning to a classic console, and no longer a hybrid. The 3-in-1 concept (living room, mobile split-screen, and portable) is certainly largely responsible for the success of the console – and also for the tolerance of players in the face of graphics that are not always at the top. This may explain why the Japanese giant takes time. The Nintendo’s next console should be released in 2024not before, believe the members of GlobalFoundry.
The Japanese video game giant will have to find its way, find where to place the cursor, even if it’s hard to imagine it getting into the race for power. But he always knew how to experiment and surprise if not always seductive.
Ultimately, in recent decades, shaken and dethroned, Nintendo is the only one to have taken certain risks, that of moving away from the classic experience of the home console, that of digging the furrow of the portable console in a world where smartphone gaming eats up every spare moment.
Hoping that Big N still has this strength in him, let’s give the floor to Satoru Iwata, and allow us to quote one of the interviews he gave to the “editorial staff” of Hobonichiremarks that were then grouped in Thus spake Iwata-san, published by Mana Books. An uplifting book, full of enthusiasm and passion. Satoru Iwata, therefore, returned to the design and the decision to manufacture the Nintendo DS despite reactions that were not always positive: “We made this decision because, from our point of view, Nintendo had no future if we continued without changing anything, but part of the public must have believed that we had lost our minds. »
The future would therefore be in the permanent reinvention of “choices with serious consequences”, which can amount to betraying user expectations, sometimes. But to betray expectations is also sometimes to exceed them to finally find success. In a video game world standardized from the hardware point of view, success… that’s all we wish for the (distant) successor of the Switch.
Digital Foundry, on YouTube
