Nintendo Switch Pro canceled in favor of Switch 2

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Nintendo Switch OLED

Nintendo

Something strange happened last year when Nintendo announced that new Switch hardware would hit the market. The main draw was a new OLED screen, and upon further inspection it was clear that there were no actual power upgrades in the new unit, despite previous rumors that some were coming.

Well, we might have a clearer picture of what happened now, and what will happen in the future.

According to Digital Foundry, Nintendo was planning a mid-generation upgrade for the Switch that everyone was calling the “Switch Pro.” However, those plans were eventually scrapped and work instead shifted toward the next generation Switch instead, which most call “Switch 2.”

DF goes on to say that no, we shouldn’t be expecting the next Switch in 2023, and that Nintendo is somewhat nervous about releasing a follow-up system, given what happened between the Wii’s massive success and the Wii U. I don’t want this situation to be repeated.

It’s fairly easy to see how we got here. The Nintendo Switch continues to sell widely well despite lagging behind competitors in power, being in some cases considerably two entire generations behind now. But the system and software are very good and it doesn’t matter, so why waste time and resources on a partial upgrade when everyone buys the original content perfectly?

Nintendo Switch OLED

Nintendo

As for potential Switch 2 and Nintendo concerns about it, I think if they can avoid “too much Nintendoing”, that’s fine. What I mean by that is that the Wii U was a failure because it wasn’t really a successor to the Wii, leaning heavily on an entirely new gimmick like the Wii Control Panel.

But this time around, it seems crystal clear what Nintendo fans want from the next generation of Switch. They literally just want…a next-gen switch. A switch with more power, even if it doesn’t come close to competing with the likes of the PS5 or Xbox Series X, which no one would expect. But the Switch’s hardware is badly dated, badly dated at this point, and while some developers can extract more potential from it than others, there’s clearly a severe limitation due to the console’s age, and the fact that when it launched it was already behind the PS4 and Xbox One on power interface. Now it is a whole generation after that, and this gap is a chasm.

Again, the Switch 2 doesn’t have to beat or come close to matching the power of the PS5 or Series X, it just has to be a huge improvement over the current Switch. Keep making the same games the same way, and there will be another megahit. Don’t worry about any Wii U disaster. But we’ll see what happens.

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