2024 is upon us, and it seems very likely the successor to the Nintendo Switch will be upon us sometime this year as well. We’ve been hearing reports for months that dev kits may already be in studios’ hands and just recently many developers from Japan talked pretty openly about their excitement for a new Nintendo console in their New Years’ messages.
Well, as part of a 2024 predictions article at Gamesindustry.biz, Kantan Games analyst Dr. Serkan Toto had some additional things to say about Nintendo’s 2024 plans. Toto has been doing the analyst thing for a long time and clearly has some inside knowledge, correctly predicting and reporting on the Japanese gaming industry in the past. According to Toto, a “Pro” version of the Switch did exist at one point, but was apparently scrapped. Now he predicts a Switch 2 that will be an “iteration rather than a revolution,” but will nonetheless target a higher $400 price tag rather than the Switch’s standard $300 MSRP…
“The time is finally here for a Switch successor, even though I can say a “Pro” model actually did exist and certain developers were already working with the dev kit. I believe the next hardware will drop next year for $400. There is a high chance that games will cost more, too: $70. The next system is also likely to be an iteration rather than a revolution. Nintendo might add some bells and whistles to the device, but it will be similar to the current Switch. And because there is Pokémon, and Pokémon is associated with handheld gaming, there is no way on earth Nintendo will drop the portability feature for their next big thing.”
We’ve been hearing a lot of sometimes-conflicting things about how far Nintendo is looking to push with their Switch successor. We’ve heard the system may support DLSS 3.5 and ray reconstruction, potentially making it more advanced than the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 in some respects, but just looking at the kind of chips NVIDIA is working on that could conceivably power a portable Switch successor, we might want to temper expectations somewhat. The “iteration rather than a revolution” approach, offering some additional hardware grunt and maybe a couple new gimmicks, but nothing truly groundbreaking, does indeed sound like the most probable scenario.
Of course, none of this has been confirmed by Nintendo yet, so take it with a grain of salt for now. As for when the Switch 2 (or whatever it’s ultimately called) might be revealed, the next few months seem likely.
