Following a recent report from longtime “Switch Pro insider” Takashi Mochizuki, GameSpot has chimed in with speculation that Nintendo could very well be moving towards releasing the long-rumored system.
In a recent report, Mochizuki primarily discusses that Nintendo has plans for a 10-for-1 stock split as of October 1 in an effort to ease the worries of investors who are looking at the Switch’s age getting ever greater.
This is exacerbated by the fact that Nintendo’s profits haven’t improved all that much in the last few months, mostly due to the ongoing global chip shortage which has resulted in fewer Switch units being produced and sold. Nintendo’s president Shuntaro Furukawa commented that Nintendo currently does “not see an end to this situation” at this current point in time.
Even with the company facing this great challenge, GameSpot’s speculation, fueled by an observation made by Mochizuki, addresses Mr. Furukawa’s answer to a question about if Nintendo truly has plans to release an upgraded Switch variant within the current fiscal year (which will end in March 2023.)
As pointed out by Mochizuki, Mr. Furukawa declined to answer directly. He was asked a similar question back in 2020, but flat-out stated that the company would not be releasing anything. This was true; the Switch has only received three new models since launching in 2017.
An incrementally improved model with the new, “Mariko”-named Tegra X1 chipset was released in August 2019. Known colloquially as the “Red-Box Switch,” it featured improved battery life. It shares the same DNA with the Nintendo Switch Lite, which launched a month later that same year, sporting a smaller, fully-portable design. Finally, the Switch OLED launched in October 2021, which was believed by many so-called insiders to be the fabled Switch Pro before its full unveiling.
The fact Mr. Furukawa has now taken the stance of not answering either “yes” or “no” at all is a factor that stands out. Going back to Mochizuki’s report, he quotes a statement from Toyo Securities senior analyst Hideki Yasuda. Yasuda mentioned that he believes that the “only option” for Nintendo to truly revitalize the Switch platform if and when the global chip shortage is overcome is by releasing “upgraded hardware.”
Indeed, this long-spoken-about upgraded Switch has been making its rounds on the Net for quite some time now, yet concrete evidence of its existence remains unfounded. If and when Nintendo finally shows it off to the world, it will be very interesting to see if it will even match the expectations of the gaming world that has had so much time to theorize about its capabilities.
Nevertheless, even if it does exist, its biggest hurdle is actually getting produced for the masses. Seeing that components are already hard to find for existing hardware, as woefully shown by the Xbox Series X|S and PS5 remaining hard to find, another Switch on the market will be available to a select few for quite some time.
