After an endless amount of speculation, the Nintendo Switch OLED was finally announced Tuesday morning. Nintendo's newest console confirmed some of the details that had been rumored about it, but the most important aspects of the long-expected Nintendo Switch Pro was nowhere to be found.
There is a rapidly growing gap in performance between the Nintendo Switch and rival consoles on the market. At launch, the Nintendo Switch failed to match the power of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, let alone their upgraded counterparts. And now both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X have taken major strides forward with higher resolutions, increased frame rates, and extremely fast load times while the Nintendo Switch has struggled with poorer frame rates and textures since the day it launched with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in 2017. To make matters worse, the Switch's Joy-Con drift problem hasn't gone away either.
Fans have been clamoring for an upgraded version of the Nintendo Switch for quite some time now. With major titles like Pokémon Legends: Arceus and the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the way, players want to see these games at their very best and the Nintendo Switch is not going to be capable of that in its current form. The thought of a Nintendo Switch Pro excited fans because they would be able to experience these games in 4k or at higher frame rates. However, many fans were instead left with a complete feeling of disappointment as the Nintendo Switch OLED lacked the improved features they were hoping for.
Nintendo Switch OLED Lacks Too Many Performance Upgrades
Nintendo confirmed to The Verge that the Nintendo Switch OLED would not include any sort of performance upgrades from the base model. While the new OLED model is receiving a welcomed storage upgrade from 32GB to 64GB, the only notable difference between the two models is a slightly larger OLED screen. This new model appears to be strictly about enhancing the handheld experience, which is perplexing as the Nintendo Switch Lite already exists for that reason. And on top of that, the Nintendo Switch OLED comes at a $50 higher price tag than the base model despite any seemingly worthwhile enhancements.
Nintendo has once again subverted the expectations of its fanbase in the worst way. Fans were practically begging for an upgraded version of the Nintendo Switch and were ready to pay whatever it took to get their hands on one, but Nintendo clearly had other plans. While the rumored 4K Nintendo Switch Pro could still exist, as some insiders indicated following Tuesday's news, it's hard to believe that would be true following this announcement. The Nintendo Switch OLED will almost certainly not be the last time the console receives a new model, given the company's history in that regard, but fans are understandably disappointed at the lack of performance upgrades nonetheless.
Source: The Verge
