In true Nintendo style, the company just announced a Switch Pro on a random Tuesday with no fanfare, no press release, and no Direct. In even truer Nintendo style, it’s not really a Switch Pro at all, but instead is being called the Nintendo Switch OLED, coming with a new screen, slightly bigger size, and a LAN port in the dock. No performance upgrade, nothing comparable to the PS4 Pro or the Xbox One X, nothing really worth shouting about at all. Perhaps that’s why Nintendo chose to use its inside voice to announce it.
Who ever told you you were getting a Switch Pro though? I know it seems as if I’m asking that question while wearing a hot dog suit, but the answer isn’t as straightforward as “journalists”. A report – that’s report, with interviews and sourcing and, you know, reportage – from Bloomberg back in March suggested we were getting a new Nintendo Switch that would be slightly bigger and come with a Samsung OLED screen. In other words, the report was spot on. It has the announcement pegged for June, rather than July 6, but that’s close enough for horseshoes.
Related: I Turned My Phone Into A Games Console, And It's Magic
In May, it followed up this report by stating that this new Switch would be released in September (it’s actually coming October 8, but again, that’s a point in horseshoes), and that it would be a permanent upgraded model, with the original Switch being phased out of sale, leaving just the Switch Lite and the Switch OLED. That’s two out of three.
The report also refers to new graphics chips that would allow for 4K resolution and improved performance when docked, something that is not featured in the actual model. Instead, the OLED will stick with a resolution of 720p in handheld and 1080p when docked, although the OLED screen will make for more vibrant colours and a slightly improved battery life.
Bloomberg didn’t make this bit up. It was spot on about everything else, so either the chip was in the pipeline then scrapped, removed to keep costs down, unavailable due to pandemic shortages, or possibly just an internal rumour that Bloomberg’s source believed to be true, but was in fact, not. We all collectively started calling it the Switch Pro, mainly because it seemed similar to the PS4 Pro and we weren’t going to call it the Switch X, but we all knew what we were getting. The lack of 4K resolution is disappointing, but it shouldn’t be the end of the world.
Here’s my take on the whole thing. You probably shouldn’t have invented a dream console and then gotten mad when Nintendo didn’t make it specifically for you. Aside from the fact that a full mid-generation upgrade for a home console doesn’t seem like Nintendo’s thing at all, despite Xbox and Sony already doing it, the timing seemed way off from the start. Wasn’t everyone memeing on Nintendo just last year for putting out so few games after being hit hard by the pandemic? A pandemic that’s still going on, and that is one of the main causes for the current PS5 shortage? Even if Nintendo was planning a 4K Switch Pro as the report suggested, it feels like the stars have aligned against it.
I’ve never bought an upgraded version of a console, with the exception of the Xbox 360 era when the red ring of death left my original unplayable. Clearly then, I’m not the target market for a console like this anyway, but it feels as if this anger comes not so much from what the OLED version includes – or does not include – but from its failure to live up to arbitrary expectations Nintendo never even set. Considering Nintendo itself has never announced or even teased a Switch Pro, complaining about the Switch OLED is a bit strange, especially when the Bloomberg reports – the only actual sources of information – got around 80 percent of the details correct.
The problem comes with how a lot of us consume information and news. While many YouTubers and streamers only want to cultivate their own community to talk about games with likeminded people, some have made reactionary anger the core of their personality. Any gaming news they dish out to their viewers comes from actual journalists, all while telling you that no one bar themselves is to be trusted. Every game is either SJW bullshit 0/10, or a 10/10 masterpiece that brings victory over the cucks.
This flavour of YouTubery has been at the forefront of the Switch Pro saga, with promises of JoyCon drift fixes (nope), haptic controls (nope), double battery life (nope), enhanced RAM (nope), and enough power to rival the PS5 (lol). These folk are all making bets on what seem like – with the exception of the last one – reasonable possibilities, in the hope that they will be proven correct and can gain the status and prestige of being an insider. The audiences of these YouTubers have been so well trained that the journalists did it so that their own false promises can be palmed off and blamed on more accurate, nuanced, and sourced reporting from more reputable sites. Bloomberg was wrong about 4K, but it didn't make it up.
Like Pavlovian dogs, these fans can be sicced on journalists, devs, or Nintendo itself at the YouTuber's will, but the facts are very clear. A report suggested there'd be a new Switch announced in June and on sale in September that offered an OLED screen, slightly bigger size, and 4K resolution. Turns out the truth is it was announced in July, is going on sale in October, and has the OLED screen, slightly bigger size, but no 4K resolution, instead coming with a LAN port. Anything else you hoped for, anything else you were told, anything else you believed, came freshly pulled from someone's rectum. Don't be surprised that it turned out to be a load of shit.
Next: Five Years On, Pokemon Go Still Feels Like The Best Game This Century
