Report: New Nintendo Switch hardware dropping in 2019, may be more powerful than an Amazon Fire this time
New Nintendo Switch hardware dropping in 2019, ya’ll. While the company continues to sell a fucking shitload of units, it makes sense to upgrade the guts every so often.
Polygon:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a new version of the popular Nintendo Switch hardware will be arriving next year, “according to suppliers and others with direct knowledge of the plan.”
There are few other details about what the new hardware revision would improve over the current model.
“The current Switch uses a lower-end liquid-crystal display without some technologies that are standard in more recent smartphone LCDs,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Updating the display with these technologies would make it brighter, thinner and more energy-efficient. The updated Switch isn’t expected to adopt the organic light-emitting diode or OLED panels used in Apple Inc.’s iPhone X series.”
Nintendo has already sold almost 20 million units of the hardware worldwide between its launch in 2017 and June 30 of this year, and an updated version of the system could help maintain that high level of player enthusiasm. The new hardware is reported to be on the way for the second half of 2019, giving the current version of the system another big holiday season in its current configuration.
Nintendo executives have stated in the past that not only does the company want every family to own a Nintendo Switch, it would like for every member of the family to have their own system.
“The biggest attraction of Nintendo Switch is that the console can be carried around and used easily for competitive gameplay via local wireless connection,” Nintendo creative fellow Shigeru Miyamoto stated during a financial briefing earlier this year. “If consumers come to take it for granted that everybody has a Nintendo Switch, then we can create new and very Nintendo genres of play, and Nintendo Switch can have a life apart from smart devices and other video game systems. Expanding the Nintendo Switch world this way is a means of eliminating risk.”
Having a new, somehow more advanced version of the Switch could be an effective way to sell family’s a second unit without having them trade-in or sell their first Switch console.