After Nintendo officially acknowledged a new console, comments from the company’s president suggest it will be quite similar to the Switch.
While Nintendo has confirmed it will announce a new console before April next year, no official details have been released about the machine itself.
There have been various credible reports though, with claims it will support magnetic Joy-Cons, 4K resolution in dock mode, backwards compatibility, and have a bigger 8-inch LCD screen. This comes after a leading analyst said it would be an ‘iteration rather than a revolution’ over the original Switch.
It seems Nintendo itself has now acknowledged that the console will be at least relatively similar to he existing hardware, according to an analyst in the company’s recent financial call.
During Nintendo’s May earnings call, company president Shuntaro Furukawa was apparently asked if its next gen console is brand new, i.e. not just a more powerful version, as the Switch Pro was once imagined to be.
According to David Gibson, senior research analyst at MST Financial, Furukawa replied: ‘Switch next model is the appropriate way to describe it.’
That’s unfortunately ambiguous language though and there could easily be a fumble in the translation or an unintended slip-up from the president, who is perhaps not technically minded. Nintendo has not yet released an official English translation from the earnings call Q&A.
If accurate though, the ‘Switch next model’ wording suggests it’s sticking to the same fundamental design, but it might be a substantial technical leap over the original. Reports last year claimed the Switch successor could run most PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S games, but no specifications have been confirmed.
An iterative improvement over the Switch certainly makes financial sense though. The Switch has sold over 141 million units worldwide and is now the third most successful console ever, only a little behind the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2.
Before it reveals anything about its next console, Nintendo is set to outline its plans for the rest of the year in a Nintendo Direct in June. This will likely include Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, which was recently outed in an ESRB rating.
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