Some Nintendo fans and industry watchers got away from Nintendo Direct on Tuesday and were baffled that the company didn’t launch a new Nintendo Switch model that has been heavily rumored and reported for more than a year. Just a few weeks before the start of E3 2021, Bloomberg reported that we could see the new 4K-enabled Switch Pro, as some call it, before June 12th “to allow publishers to showcase their full range of Switch games.”
Of course, Nintendo didn’t, as Nintendo knows better than to showcase its next big hardware release at E3. The company seems to have learned that lesson a long time ago, with the disastrous E3 2012 reveal of the Wii U and the E3 2010 reveal of the Nintendo 3DS, which stumbled so badly that Nintendo dropped the price of the handheld a few months after the start.
At E3 2012, Nintendo held a traditional press conference for the last time at the Gaming Industry Expo – the type of presentation where executives stand on a stage and hold up a video game console for the first time. Since then, Nintendo has held virtual presentations at E3, both packaged Nintendo Direct videos and Treehouse live streams.
Hardware revelations haven’t been part of Nintendo’s E3 plan for nearly a decade. Instead, Nintendo often followed E3 weeks or months later with small to large hardware announcements. It introduced the Nintendo 2DS in August 2013; the new Nintendo 3DS in August 2014; the NES classic in July 2016; the Super NES Classic in June 2017 (after this E3); and the Nintendo Switch Lite in July 2019. The original Nintendo Switch was unveiled in October 2016, a convenient distance from this year’s E3, a show traditionally held in June.
It’s easy to see why Nintendo keeps its hardware announcements separate from the actual E3 (and other video game events like Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show). New hardware means a more complex equation for upcoming games. Fans will always wonder how the new Legend of Zelda game will run on a 4K-enabled Nintendo Switch (or what the new Mario + Rabbids game will look like on existing Switch hardware). Instead of focusing on the games, Nintendo would be forced to mess up its message and get bogged down in discussions about frame rates, resolution, and other technical nuances.
All of this means that if the Nintendo Switch Pro (or New Nintendo Switch, in line with Nintendo’s hardware revision naming style) exists and the company plans to announce it this year, an announcement could be imminent. And we can all focus on what the next Nintendo Switch is doing without the distraction of a new Metroid game.
Nintendo has a constant record of releasing new hardware each year, including unexpected physical products like new Game & Watch handhelds, Nintendo Labo, and Super Mario Lego sets, and all indications are that the company will continue to do so in 2021. Fans may just have to wait a little longer.
