As this year will mark the fifth anniversary of big N’s hugely successful Nintendo Switch console, perhaps we should be talking about a successor rather than a half-generation update (which Sony and Microsoft may repeat this generation…).
In 2021, we often reported on a supposedly more powerful Nintendo Switch model, which we christened Nintendo Switch Pro for lack of a better idea (since it was rumoured). The Japanese console maker did announce a new version of the Switch. Still, the Nintendo Switch OLED model, launched in October, has only seen a size increase in its display and dock with no change in performance, so it can’t even be called a mid-generation innovation (but rather the local equivalent of the XL versions seen with the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 2DS).
Even so, some believe in the release of the Nintendo Switch Pro, but those in question are no longer sure in what format (hardware) or when it will be available if indeed the big N does decide to do so. Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst at Ampere Analysis, is not one of them. He spoke to Gamesindustry about why we shouldn’t be optimistic about the release of the fourth version of the Switch (the non-dockable Nintendo Switch Lite joins the base version!) in 2022…
“I’m currently expecting the console market year-on-year performance to be quite flat in 2022 as Switch sales decline and we come off what has been an amazing couple of years for console gaming. Even so, the Nintendo Switch family of devices will once again be the best-selling consoles in 2022 at around 21 million sold to consumers, aided by the release of Switch OLED. I’m not expecting a Switch Pro in 2022. We have a next-gen Nintendo console in our forecasts for late 2024, so I’m not convinced a ‘Pro’ model is going to appear at all,” Harding-Rolls said.
There is a rationale in his train of thought. If the Nintendo Switch Pro does come out this year, it would be like Sony releasing the PlayStation 4 Pro in 2018. (It launched in November 2016, three years after the base version, not five!)
Source: WCCFTech
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