Rumors of a Nintendo Switch Pro console have been doing the rounds for years, though the evidence to back up the claims has always been questionable at best. Today, we have perhaps our best-placed source for such a rumor, and it's coming via Digital Foundry's John Lineman, who has recently stated that a mid-generation refresh was canceled by Nintendo.

During the latest DF Direct over on the Digital Foundry YouTube channel, Lineman spilled the beans, saying "from what I can understand from talking to different developers is that there was some sort of mid-generation Switch update planned at one point, and that seems to be no longer happening."

As far as sources go, Lineman is up there. The Digital Foundry team has close contact with a lot of developers, given the work the channel does, and the team even gets early access to new hardware to deliver in-detail previews on hardware specs, so it's not without reason that one or two developers may have divulged a bit of info to the tech guys of our side of the industry.



Given that Nintendo did actually end up releasing a new Nintendo Switch console, the Nintendo Switch OLED, it's not hard to imagine that the OLED model was perhaps at one point intended to be a mid-generation upgrade, or a Switch Pro, as the rumors go.

Nintendo has a long history of releasing new versions of its existing hardware and, compared to what has come before, the house of Mario has been quite conservative with the Nintendo Switch. The Nintendo DS line of consoles got numerous editions, including the Lite, the DSi, and then the 3DS line, which also received several iterations. On the home console front, the Nintendo Wii got a couple of revamps, though nothing along the lines of a mid-gen power bump, something first introduced to players with the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X.

It's likely, then, that the next piece of hardware to come out of Nintendo will be the true successor to the Nintendo Switch rather than a stop-gap between the old and the new. The question is: what will Nintendo do next? Will it stick with the hybrid home console/handheld formula that has made the Switch such a success, or will the Japanese giant find a new way to surprise us all?

Posted: Dec 30, 2022 11:24 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/nintendo-had-switch-pro-plans/