Leading up to E3, there were reports of a new and more powerful Switch hitting the market. With the likes of thousands of YouTube personalities jumping the gun and literally confirming it, amongst more pronounced outlets simply reporting on the Bloomberg article that greatly hinted at a 4K model being announced before E3. While none of that came to pass, apart from the Internet losing their mind on such a device, and conspiracy videos looking to prove the Breath of the Wild 2 trailer was running on said hardware, Nintendo today finally announced that the new Switch does exist, albeit only as a model with a bigger screen. Nintendo gonna Nintendo, are we surprised?
The Switch OLED, which I forever will be calling it the Switch-O, (Patent pending..) is a 7-inch display screen model that promises greater vibrancy in its color range, a wired LAN port, a more flexible Microsoft Surface-like stand for tabletop play, better audio, and an internal storage capacity of 64gb. Otherwise, it’s business as usual for the handheld hybrid, offering no performance increases to games, and will continue to run portable in 720p, with 1080p docked. Check out the trailer below for the official announcement.
The Switch OLED will retailed for $350USD and be available on October 8th, but will likely be poached by resellers and be unable to obtain one for quite some time, which has been the case for nearly any video game related item announced and available for pre order since the PS5 and Series X launched late last year. This reseller problem also affected the Metroid Prime Amiibos, the special edition of the same game, and The Legend of Zelda joycons that are meant to coincide with the release of Skyward Sword HD for the Switch, launching this month. Still, it’s a very nice-looking handheld that I personally can’t wait to own.