Nintendo Switch 2: what to expect from this console and when it will be available | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

Pho­to: flickr.com

The portable con­sole Nin­ten­do Switch turned out to be exact­ly the device that gamers lacked. At the same time, it is a pow­er­ful portable device, much cool­er than a sophis­ti­cat­ed smart­phone, and a con­sole con­nect­ed to a TV. But 4 years have passed since the release of the first mod­el, and 2 years have been marked by the bud­get ver­sion, Switch Lite. It’s time to talk about the pre­mi­um con­sole, the rumors about which are flood­ing the Inter­net.

When released

The Nin­ten­do Switch Lite is often com­pared to the Game Boy, an eight-bit con­sole from the 80s and 90s. Pho­to: popularmechanics.com

In 2019, two ver­sions of the set-top box were released at once: Switch Lite (with sim­pli­fied char­ac­ter­is­tics) and Switch with an increased bat­tery capac­i­ty. But instead of putting out the rumors about the upcom­ing Pro-mod­el, the new items only warmed them up.

Sev­er­al rep­utable pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing the Wall Street Jour­nal, have already announced that Nin­ten­do has plans for the Switch 2 (Switch Pro), a pre­mi­um con­sole mod­el. Well, if you believe this announce­ment in its entire­ty, then the new prod­uct will be expect­ed in 2021. I must say that last year was espe­cial­ly suc­cess­ful for the com­pa­ny, thanks to the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the Ani­mal Cross­ing game dur­ing the quar­an­tine peri­od.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Nin­ten­do them­selves are still very silent, they only con­firm that they will always look for ways to improve the game­play and user expe­ri­ence. How­ev­er, the pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can rep­re­sen­ta­tive office of Nin­ten­do noticed that the Switch is increas­ing the tra­di­tion­al life cycle of the con­sole and 2020 was its mid­dle. So it may turn out that we have to wait a cou­ple of years before the Nin­ten­do Switch 2 (or Pro) comes out.

How much will it cost

The con­sole, which was released in 2017, could not be dam­aged by an update. Pho­to: businessinsider.com

Any changes in design or hard­ware, of course, affect the buy­er’s wal­let. Although you should not ignore the tra­di­tion that has devel­oped in the world of tech­nol­o­gy, to release all new items at the same price.

In this case, it is log­i­cal to expect a slight increase in price, based on the cost of the Lite ver­sion: it is almost $80 cheap­er than the full ver­sion.

Tak­ing into account the pric­ing pol­i­cy of Nin­ten­do’s main com­peti­tors — PS and Xbox, it is like­ly that if the mod­el still receives the Pro pre­fix in the name and char­ac­ter­is­tics, then it will cost more, by about $ 100.

The main characteristics of the game console

New display

The Switch now has a 6.2‑inch screen with 720p res­o­lu­tion. Pho­to: tomsguide.com

This wish is sup­port­ed by rumors, and in prin­ci­ple cor­re­sponds to at least mod­ern stan­dards of mobile devices. First­ly, the new prod­uct is required to sup­port the 4K for­mat: for 4 years, this res­o­lu­tion has moved from the option­al area to the num­ber of manda­to­ry ones. If you do not rely on trends, then you can turn to infor­ma­tion from the devel­op­ers of games for Switch. Many of them con­firmed to Bloomberg that they were approached by Nin­ten­do ask­ing them to adapt their games to 4K res­o­lu­tion.

It is also quite pos­si­ble to expect that the LCD screen will be com­plete­ly replaced by a mini-LED. This is con­firmed by the pub­li­ca­tion of the Tai­wanese edi­tion of Eco­nom­ic Dai­ly News, which says that Nin­ten­do uses mini-LED dis­plays from Innolux. This tech­nol­o­gy improves image qual­i­ty and res­o­lu­tion. The Switch Lite has 720p, which in today’s world is not enough to impress gamers.

More focus on unique features

Now the Nin­ten­do Switch has a large num­ber of acces­sories for con­ve­nient game­play in dif­fer­ent games. Pho­to: robots.net

Nin­ten­do them­selves said that in the future, much more atten­tion will be paid to “unique fea­tures of the Switch.” What does this mean, you have to deci­pher. The com­pa­ny claims that the suc­cess of the device is due to the fact that you can choose between a more pow­er­ful stan­dard ver­sion and a sim­pli­fied Lite ver­sion, and devel­op­ers’ resources are focused on cre­at­ing appli­ca­tions for a sin­gle plat­form.

The Nin­ten­do Switch is the only portable con­sole that also dou­bles as a desk­top con­sole. That is, you can play it both at home and on the street. Appar­ent­ly, the form fac­tor will remain unchanged, but the con­sole’s capa­bil­i­ties will be improved once again. So it is like­ly that it will become not just a gam­ing device, but a media cen­ter.

Sev­er­al code names for poten­tial devices were found in the Nin­ten­do update code at once: Icosa, Cop­per, Hoag, Iowa and Cal­cio. Only Cop­per and Cal­cio have not left them yet. Users of the ResetEra por­tal believe that Cop­per may turn out to be an exclu­sive­ly sta­tion­ary con­sole, since there is no charg­ing among the char­ac­ter­is­tics, but there is HDMI. And the Cal­cio could very well be the Switch’s Pro mod­el.

double screen

Not all wish­es have real mean­ing for the con­sole. Pho­to: southarkansassun.com

Anoth­er char­ac­ter­is­tic that is increas­ing­ly found on portable devices. One of the lat­est such exper­i­ments was car­ried out on Xiao­mi smart­phones. The dual screen infor­ma­tion also came from the upgrade code, but the more users think about it, the more attrac­tive this con­cept becomes. Whether a device like the Switch needs a sec­ond screen is a moot point: if you don’t use it for social pur­pos­es, then it’s more like­ly no than yes. How­ev­er, an addi­tion­al screen can still serve by anal­o­gy with a sec­ond mon­i­tor, and any gamer will appre­ci­ate this.

AR and VR support

The cur­rent VR glass­es for Switch are made in the same way as Google Box. Pho­to: forbes.com

But this fea­ture is espe­cial­ly expect­ed, and soon­er or lat­er Nin­ten­do will have to pay atten­tion to it. The more games appear in vir­tu­al and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty, the more inter­est­ing this con­cept is. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of the AR game Poke­mon Go could­n’t go unno­ticed, let alone VR games.

At the moment, sup­port for AR and VR tech­nolo­gies is not very pos­si­ble in Nin­ten­do, giv­en the pow­er of the devices and their func­tions. But for a sta­tion­ary con­sole or a Pro mod­el, it would be quite log­i­cal to add such an option.

In addi­tion, back in 2018, the Labo VR kit for chil­dren was released, essen­tial­ly an ana­logue of the Google Box for chil­dren. The Labo VR kit isn’t the per­fect ver­sion of VR glass­es, but it does show that Nin­ten­do is think­ing about using the Switch as a VR device.

Increased power

With more pow­er, the Switch will be able to sup­port more demand­ing games. Pho­to: digitaltrends.com

Every time when it comes to a new mod­el, I want to know how much more pow­er­ful the hard­ware will become. If we are look­ing for­ward to the release of Switch Pro, then the expec­ta­tions are quite jus­ti­fied. The con­sole should have a high­er speed and improved graph­ics. The require­ments of games for soft­ware are grow­ing, it is log­i­cal that the pow­er should fol­low them. Of course, we don’t know any­thing for sure about this yet.

Val­ues ​​of 30 fps or even 60 fps for games like The Witch­er 3 are per­fect­ly rea­son­able require­ments. In gen­er­al, claims to the con­sole GPU are becom­ing more and more loud. Some Switch app devel­op­ers are hint­ing that sup­port­ing extra ren­der­ing at high­er res­o­lu­tions would be nice, and it would­n’t hurt to increase the amount of inter­nal and RAM. Also among the devel­op­ers you can meet those who are dis­sat­is­fied with the Nin­ten­do Switch con­trollers. For exam­ple, they lack ana­log trig­gers. One way or anoth­er, the com­pa­ny has room for improve­ment.

Outcome

Def­i­nite­ly want to believe the rumors that in 2021 we will see a Pro ver­sion of the Nin­ten­do Switch. The com­pa­ny has many oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve the con­sole and make it more adapt­ed to mod­ern games. Espe­cial­ly when you con­sid­er the unique­ness of the con­sole and the wide library of games. And the more rumors about the new prod­uct, the less gamers buy exist­ing mod­els. So you need to stir up inter­est in the con­sole, and now is the per­fect time for this.