An analyst report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News predicts the Switch 2 will enter production later in 2020 and be ready for sale in early 2021. Bloomberg recently corroborated that report.
These reports follow a year’s worth of rumors about Nintendo manufacturing a new and improved Switch model.
According to both reports, the Switch 2, or whatever Nintendo calls it, will boast enhanced processing powers. Bloomberg says it will even support 4K gaming, an assertion Kantan Games’ Serkan Toto put forth earlier in 2020 for his yearly market predictions.
Economic Daily News also claims Nintendo plans on new interface features for the Switch 2. The report doesn’t provide details about what these features might be, though Nintendo did file several new patents in 2019, such as a pen attachment for Joy-Con controllers, along with flexible Joy-Cons and a Switch VR headset.
Both reports say the Switch 2 will ship with multiple new first-party and third-party games, with Bloomberg going further and saying these games are for both casual and core audiences.
Economic Daily News mentioned Macronix, maker of Switch game cards, expects nine times the number of card sales for each new Switch system sold. In other words, Nintendo will shift more games per console sold, which means there are likely many more games planned for 2021.
It may also be when Nintendo switches to 64GB cards for the Switch’s physical games, a change that could reduce prices for third-party software on the Switch. Though the card technology has been ready for a year, Nintendo has yet to make the change, and Toto also predicted the new Switch console release will coincide with bigger game cards.
Thus far, the only upgrade Nintendo’s pushed for the Switch is a hardware enhancement providing a small processing boost and improvements to the battery life for the original Switch. Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more Switch 2 console news as it develops.
[Source: Economic Daily News, Bloomberg via Gematsu]
