Revolution or evolution? Nintendo’s next console will be “the next Switch model,” according to Shuntaro Furukawa

With more than 140 million Switches sold in just seven years and new surprises to be announced before reaching the halfway point of 2024, Nintendo begins to prepare its next big move in no rush to show its cards: there is no official information about the features of Switch 2 (or whatever it’s called) nor any clues about the games that will come to it. However, the way in which Shuntaro Furukawa already openly refers to it sheds some light on the matter.

During the round of questions with investors, after presenting the company’s latest report, the president of Nintendo was asked if the new console was going to be something completely new or would be similar to the Switch itself. His textual response

was that the appropriate way to describe it is “the next Switch model”. What does that mean?

Until March 2017, the date on which Nintendo Switch was released, there were two ways of addressing the generational change between consoles by the Big N: on desktop consoles it sought to offer that “something completely new” implicit in the question asked. made Furukawa, while in laptops they were committed to consolidating the ground already conquered. Something we saw when the Game Boy went to the Game Boy Color and from there to the Game Boy Advance, and it happened again with the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS. However, the Switch unified both legacies by being both a desktop and portable console.

To be fair, throughout these seven years, Nintendo Switch has had up to three models and a multitude of editions: without counting the revisions, like the one in 2019, we have a Switch Lite that can only be played on a laptop and a Switch model OLED with improved display, more storage and battery and other improvements; but when it comes down to it there is no difference in the way video games run on them. And that’s where Furukawa’s words about “the next Switch model” take on specific meaning.

Nintendo Switch 2, revolution or evolution?

Although no official data has been given, nor will it be given until after June 2024 by Nintendo, what is implied by the words of the president of the company is that the transition from Switch to its successor will be closer to the views on your laptops than those of their home consoles. Offering new possibilities to players and more hardware resources, but following in the same wake of a console that has only known success.

Regarding the rumors, and without anything confirmed or denied by Nintendo, Activision’s statements during the purchase process by Xbox suggest that the Switch successor will offer games comparable to the PS4 and Xbox One systems, that the screen would be LCD

instead of betting on OLED to make its price more attractive and there has even been talk of a new connection system for the Joy Cons themselves. On the gaming side, the only thing we are aware of is the Big N’s willingness to offer backward compatibility.

It’s still too early to know whether approaching Nintendo’s next console as “a new model” will end up being a success or not, but we have two things clear: the 2017 Switch is on track to become the best-selling console in history (PS2 has no less than 20 million units) and if Nintendo wants to match the success with its successor, its priority must be convincing the millions of fans who today play Animal Crossing New Horizons or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Something much easier to achieve if you do the same type of replacement as in your previous portable consoles.

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