The Wall Street Journal is back to reporting Nintendo Switch rumors once more, following up on their October 2018 claim that Nintendo would be releasing a new hardware revision of the Switch in 2019. Originally, they stated that the Switch would focus on peripheral additions similar to Labo, rather than new hardware, before changing their initial stance to state that a "better" Switch revision was on the way, and would focus on upgraded hardware. This time around, their claim has a few more details--now mentioning two potential variations: a cheaper model which would replace the Nintendo 3DS as the budget option, and an enhanced model, which would be "targeted at avid video gamers".

This conflicts with previous recent statements from both the Nintendo JP president Shuntaro Furukawa and the soon to be former president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, who separately debunked new hardware rumors by saying "[it] is not Nintendo's current focus".

Right now, as we go into our second holiday, my focus is making sure the current grey and neon Switch continue to have momentum in the market place. You saw systems, whether it’s our own or competitive home console systems, utilize that tactic a bit later in the life cycle. So right now, the current execution of Nintendo Switch with the Joy-Con and all of the capabilities, that’s our focus right now.

The Wall Street Journal further asserts that these two supposed hardware revisions would be "different from the original, and you would be surprised," with both versions launching as early as Summer 2019. According to the WSJ's insider sources, hardware prototypes have already been sent to software developers, who say that the "upgraded" Switch model won't be as strong as the Xbox One X or PlayStation 4 Pro.

Nintendo Co. plans to launch two new versions of its Switch gaming console as early as this summer, people familiar with the matter said, as the company seeks to sustain sales momentum for the product going into a crucial third year.

What are your thoughts? Do you find the Wall Street Journal to be reliable, or have other rumors of new Switch hardware got you convinced? Are you more skeptical, after already hearing the WSJ's initial story, or do you believe that there's no room for doubt after so many claims of a revised Switch model have been circulating across the internet? With sales of the Nintendo 3DS slowing down, and the company having just barely missed the mark on its 20 million sales fiscal year projection, a new "pro" and "budget" model could be just what they need to get more sales rolling.

Source

 

[Dominator211]

The enhanced switch is gonna be like overclocked a bit more. Whoopdie doo. It’s Nintendo don’t expect much here.

 

[Xzi]

The enhanced switch is gonna be like overclocked a bit more. Whoopdie doo. It’s Nintendo don’t expect much here.

Well, going from a fairly significant underclock to an overclock would actually make quite a bit of difference, but again there's the problem of cooling solution. Plus battery life concerns. Unless they go stationary with the "Switch Pro," which would seemingly defeat the purpose of Switch to begin with. Lots of reasons to doubt this is actually going to be a thing.

 

[Bimmel]

...and we know how well these exclusive 3DS titles sold. And there were so many.

 

[Dominator211]

Well, going from a fairly significant underclock to an overclock would actually make quite a bit of difference, but again there's the problem of cooling solution. Plus battery life concerns. Unless they go stationary with the "Switch Pro," which would seemingly defeat the purpose of Switch to begin with. Lots of reasons to doubt this is actually going to be a thing.

I would like to see a X2 switch I would like to see RE2 Remake on the switch. But it is Nintendo it’s not gonna happen. I’m being a realist.

 

[Spider_Man]

I dont know what they can remove to make a cheaper model or maybe they release a labo version which you build out of crap board.

 

[Xzi]

I would like to see a X2 switch I would like to see RE2 Remake on the switch. But it is Nintendo it’s not gonna happen. I’m being a realist.

X2 makes sense for Switch 2, but yeah, realistically it's nowhere near cheap enough to stick in a gaming console yet.

 

[RedoLane]

I only hope it won't mean we'll never get a 3DS successor.
Yeah, I know that the switch is also an handheld, in a sense.

 

[0000ff]

Not sure I do believe this, what would a more powerful Switch even look like in terms of chipset? Or would they just make it larger with a better cooling solution so they can increase the clock to normal speed?

I think you hit it on the head on that last point. The x1's stock speed is 2ghz in the shield tv iirc and the cooling isn't that sophisticated on the shield tv. So maybe this isn't a super complex task for Nintendo.

 

[Kubas_inko]

A hardware revision from Nintendo? I’m calling bullcrap on this, there’s absolutely no precedent for this kind of thing from Nintendo whatsoever.


Well, unless you count the NES-101, SNS-101, Gameboy Pocket, Gameboy Light, Gameboy Colour, Gameboy Advance SP, Gameboy Micro, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL, 3DS XL, 2DS, 2DS XL, New 3DS.....


But other than that, no precedent whatsoever, it’s totally not the kind of thing Nintendo is known for.

You forgot the Wii U

 

[Hielkenator2]

I wonder how much performance/graphical difference will be there..

I think , none.

 

[Cubuss]

I DONT NEED 2 CONSOLES FFS,

 

[Hielkenator2]

Nintendo finally mastered 720p60 output?

I guess you do not own a Switch? Most 1st party are 720 900 and 1080p 60hz.
you really underestimate what this little device pumps out. Lzy devs will be lazy.

If you own a switch, why would you make this statement, just for drama?

 

[kumikochan]

I guess you do not own a Switch? Most 1st party are 720 900 and 1080p 60hz.
you really underestimate what this little device pumps out. Lzy devs will be lazy.

If you own a switch, why would you make this statement, just for drama?

If you're talking about Indie games, yeah. 3th party triple A games, not so much. Doom as an example runs 360p most of the time as seen in the DF video and so does wolfenstein and other major 3th party triple A titles. Xenoverse 2 runs 1152x640, also Donkey kong runs in that resolution undocked, Kirby undocked 1152x640, lego worlds 960x540 , lego marvel super heroes 960x540, mario + raving rabbids 1066x600, naruto shippuden 540p, project octopath traveller 1024x600, snakepass 844x 475, yooka laylee 1120x630. A whole list of resolutions for games and you can clearly see it misses that mark a lot. games outlined in pink are games that go under that mark quite a lot and this was just an early on list
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13F5kp5iJZUXE-5gHgck7j45HqR5omqLdhCmNK-cOjDI/edit#gid=0.

 

[Frankbel]

When Nintendo makes an official statement that something is "not" under development, it is a confirmation of that.

 

[Oschara]

I just hope that they don't pull a N3DS only titles for the switch.

 

[CrossOut]

With the Xbox one X and the PS4 Pro it is easy to speculate that Nintendo will make an updated version of their Switch. This and the fact that the Nintendo DS got a new version as well. You don't need Wall Street Journal to specualte for you haha.

 

[kumikochan]

With the Xbox one X and the PS4 Pro it is easy to speculate that Nintendo will make an updated version of their Switch. This and the fact that the Nintendo DS got a new version as well. You don't need Wall Street Journal to specualte for you haha.

Those enhanced systems didn't have exclusives for them. If the rumors are true and Nintendo will go the exclusives route for that system, it will fail and we've seen this happen not once but multiple times in the past. Sega being the biggest example of that mistake. If you do that you will piss off millions of customers who bought your system in the first place. The customers you have at the beginning are your die hard fans and consumers and pissing those off, well we've seen how that worked out in the past

 

[Costello]

if the better version has bluetooth audio support then I'm buying it
otherwise I'll go for the cheaper one

 

[Jayro]

PLEASE give us a Switch XL with adult-sized joy-cons!!!

 

[Rabbid4240]

We better not get exclusive games like the "new" 3ds had.