There won’t be a Nintendo Switch Pro coming out in 2020

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has put a dampener on hopes of a new and more powerful Nintendo Switch coming out any time soon, stating that the company has “no plans to launch a new Nintendo Switch model during 2020.”

The statement comes out of a financial briefing following the company’s best quarter of Nintendo Switch sales to date. Thanks in part to the Nintendo Switch Lite helping to broaden the Switch’s audience, the company sold over 10 million consoles through the Christmas period, so there’s certainly no concern over hardware power from consumers.

Instead they can focus on what makes the Nintendo Switch special, both with its games and hardware. “We believe that it is important to continue to communicate the appeal of both Nintendo Switch systems and expand the installed base,” Furukawa said. Though it got off to a good start, he doesn’t feel that Nintendo have reached the full potential of the Switch Lite, so expect to see that marketed more heavily over the coming months.

Still, while that puts paid to a Nintendo Switch upgrade in 2020, don’t expect the rumours to disappear. Nintendo have a track record of releasing updated, more powerful versions of their portable consoles, from the Game Boy Color to the Nintendo DSi and New Nintendo 3DS.

Speculation was initially that Nintendo would release both the Switch Lite and a Switch Pro in 2019, though in the end they only released one new model (and revised the internals of the original Switch design for better battery life). Naturally, analysts then shifted their expectations to 2020 and speculated that Nintendo would boost their hardware power to counter the launch of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

It’s now clear that Nintendo will continue to dance to their own tune, as opposed to going toe to toe with Microsoft and Sony. Then again, would it really be considered direct competition when those platforms will offer cutting edge desktop parts and ray tracing, while Nintendo are simply bumping up their hybrid console’s specs?

Source: GamesIndustry.biz