Hey! Nintendo finally revealed the long-rumoured Switch Pro today!
Only, it’s not the Switch Pro. It’s just a regular Switch with some shinier bells and whistles. Don’t get me wrong, the bigger OLED screen, better speakers, proper kickstand, and (paltry) increase to internal memory are nice upgrades. I have no problem with these. They’re cool, little value-adds made to entice the three people who are still on the fence about purchasing a Switch. But they won’t materially improve my existing Nintendo Switch experience, so I’m thinking I’m going to skip this new model.
(I say that now, but just wait for when October rolls around and I post the inevitable selfie of me in line to pick up my pre-ordered Switch OLED.)
While looking into what this hardware revision really adds, I’ve read a couple articles (and a lot of comments) that expressed surprise that this is not in fact the Switch Pro that rumormongers have been hyping up for well over two years now. And to that I say: For real? Did you really expect all of that nonsense to be true? It seems like a lot of the internet likes to put blind faith in the ramblings of “tech insiders” that don’t actually have a hot clue. And while this happens all the time for different things, this is just the first time that I’m smh-ing hard enough to feel like I need to write about it.
In general, there really shouldn’t be any surprise here. Nintendo doesn’t exactly have a long history of mid-generation power upgrades. There was the New 3DS, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. They’re all about those bells and whistles. This is as “typical Nintendo” as it comes, so I really don’t get why anyone is surprised in the least at this reveal. Oh well!