Nintendo’s heavily rumored Switch update with 4K-capable hardware is unlikely to ever see the light of day.
That’s according to Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst with Ampere Analysis who shared his predictions for the gaming industry in 2022 in a recent piece published by GamesIndustry.biz. Harding-Rolls discusses Nintendo’s plans for the current year, noting that he doesn’t believe they will include a Switch Pro model. Instead, the analyst is convinced that Nintendo’s next console release will be a brand-new console, one that releases in 2024.
“I’m currently expecting the console market year-on-year performance to be quite flat in 2022 as Switch sales decline and we come off what has been an amazing couple of years for console gaming,” Harding-Rolls said before going on to tease the potential sales performance of the Nintendo Switch this year and what the company’s future hardware plans might be.
“Even so, Nintendo Switch family of devices will once again be the best-selling consoles in 2022 at around 21 million sold to consumers, aided by the release of Switch OLED,” he added. “I’m not expecting a Switch Pro in 2022. We have a next-gen Nintendo console in our forecasts for late 2024, so I’m not convinced a ‘Pro’ model is going to appear at all.”
The previous year saw numerous rumors of Nintendo releasing a so-called “Switch Pro” that would include hardware upgrades enabling support for 4K resolution and graphics. Instead, Nintendo fans got the Switch OLED, a new model of the console that merely featured a larger, 7-inch OLED display and minor improvements such as a better stand.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz