The Nintendo Switch first came out in March 2017 and has now been around for over 6 years. In that time, it has been a huge commercial success, selling over 120 million units. It has also seen many critically acclaimed titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nevertheless, the console has been showing it’s age in many recent games. The console’s old hardware limits it’s potential to run some of the most demanding titles. Most of it’s games run at 30 FPS and have quite a low resolution. The console is a far cry from the capabilities of the PS5 and Xbox Series X in terms of compute power. It is definitely struggling to keep up in some of the most demanding games AAA games. As a result, the question on our minds is very much ‘will there ever be a Nintendo Switch Pro?’.
Will there be a Switch Pro and When will it come out?
The Nintendo Switch is now into it’s seventh year on the market. Unsurprisingly, rumours have picked up a lot of pace this year. It is already unprecedented for Nintendo to go this long without launching some kind of successor. As a result, there is much demand for a more powerful piece of hardware from the company. The latest rumours over the a Switch successor come courtesy of VGC. The source indicates a late 2024 release for the Switch Pro. It also claims that the console will see a downgrade to an LCD screen from an OLED one. A late 2024 release would make sense given the popularity of the Switch. A gap of over 7 years has been seen before in the industry, such as with the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Lastly, the report also stated the that console would continue to have a physical cartridge slot.
At this point there is however only one piece of concrete information from Nintendo as to a possible switch successor. During a recent company briefing, president Shuntaro Furukawa mentioned that they had begun thinking about a successor. He specifically brought up the next console in relation to being able to transition Nintendo accounts to it. Whether this consoles ends up being called a Switch Pro or something else entirely is still unknown. Nevertheless, this is pretty much confirmation that something is in the works.
Switch successor Price and Specs
Given how close we are to 2024, we can also speculate about the so-called Switch Pro’s price and specs. The OLED Switch costs £349.99 so a price point around this mark would seem reasonable. This price would make it cheaper than the Xbox Series X and disc-based PS5 allowing it to be quite competitive. At a higher price than the LED Switch, it would also allow for much more powerful hardware to be included.
In terms of the specs, it is difficult to say for sure what they may be in the absence of concrete information. Multiple sources have reported that it will feature an upgraded version of the Tegra X1 chip. It is believed that the Switch Pro will be similar to the original PS4 and Xbox One in terms of processing power. This would represent quite a reasonable upgrade from the original console. This kind of power would also make it similar to the Steam Deck.
With this all in mind, 1.5 TFLOPS such like a reasonable estimate for the Switch 2’s GPU performance. 1.5 TFLOPS would represent a true generational leap. This is something to be expected given the possible 7 years between the Pro and it’s predecessor. 1.5 TFLOPS of compute power would allow it to play a huge amount of more modern AAA releases. With the help of upscalers such as FSR, the Switch Pro would be a pretty capable device indeed and by far the most powerful one ever released by Nintendo.
Hopefully, this article has given you a clearer idea on if and when there will be Switch Pro, and on what to expect from one. Nintendo’s next console is definitely in the works at this point. It is only a matter of time until we receive more concrete information on it. But until that time, we still have some great upcoming releases to look forward to on the original Switch. This includes Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and the Super Mario RPG!
