Nintendo's president has revealed that we shouldn't think of the company's next console as a replacement, rather the Switch Pro style device we've been predicting for years.
It's the strongest indication yet that it will be fully backward compatible, ensuring all your current Switch games will still work.
Fresh from confirming that it'll reveal its next games console before the end of this fiscal year, Nintendo apparently had one more little surprise to drop about the Switch's successor.
As quoted by analyst David Gibson after Nintendo's recent investor call, the company's president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked if the company's next console could be considered brand new.
Furukawa allegedly replied that a "Switch next model is the appropriate way to describe it".
In the results call when asked if the next gen console was brand new or ... Furukawa answered "Switch next model is the appropriate way to describe it" :) #NintendoSwitch #NintendoSwitch2 https://t.co/ytF4oh0fN0May 7, 2024
It sounds, therefore, like we can expect a similar console to the Nintendo Switch when the wraps are finally taken off, albeit one that will presumably bring much beefier specs to that table.
In truth, this isn't much of a surprise – for years, now, the rumours and leaks around the Switch's successor have focussed on the idea that it'll probably be a sort of "Switch Pro" rather than Nintendo Switch 2.
This would retain the detachable controllers and portability that have made the Switch such a rampant success, but would be able to benefit from the pretty sizeable leaps forward in GPU tech that have taken place since the first Switch was designed.
In fact, the latest intel suggests that the Switch successor will have similar Joy-Con controllers to the current generation, but that they'll be upgraded with magnetic attachments to the main console, rather than the sliding rails currently used.
Whether they'll also be redesigned to be more resistant to stick drift, a problem that has plagued the Switch, will be harder to gauge until the console launches and people can break it down.
Still, it's great to know that we're going to find out about the next Switch sometime in the next six month – even if Nintendo has made it clear that we shouldn't expect a reveal this summer.
While late 2024 was reportedly the initial target for the console's launch, that has been widely reported to have slipped back into early 2025, now, so the Switch still has a little bit of time left alone on the pedestal as Nintendo's flagship console.
