 Would a mid-gen refresh for Nintendo Switch say sometime in the next, I don't know, between now and holiday 2023 still make sense and should Nintendo actually consider doing it? Now I wasn't asking myself this question because frankly, contrary to popular belief, I don't spend my days sitting here thinking, oh man, you know, how can I talk about Switch Pro today? Honestly, I don't spend my days thinking about it. I spend my days with my kids and with my fiancee and watching some shows and working out and trying to stick to my diet and yes, playing video games, that's right, I actually spend a majority of my free time playing video games and playing with my kids, not thinking about man, how can I bring up Switch Pro today? But this topic actually came to the forefront one because RGT-85 made a video, I believe two days ago at this point, or maybe it was yesterday, I don't remember the exact dates on when he published his content, I only really watched about the first two minutes of it because I kind of got the gist of what he was doing. He probably had other reasons for it, but he basically was arguing that yeah, it makes sense to release a Switch Pro still instead of a Switch 2 because most people have resigned themselves to hey, you know what, we're going to enjoy Switch for the next year, two years, three years and then get a next generation platform, it doesn't make sense to release a Switch Pro. And he went the opposite direction and I'm not even sure what all the reasons were that he brought up. But that's not why I'm actually talking about it today, it's because I put up a video yesterday about the Hogwarts Legacy Delay and how it seems like the Switch version is being additionally delayed and how we still aren't even sure if it's a cloud version or not. So some bad, or I don't know, maybe purposeful bad communication on the Switch version. But what's interesting is David Agile81 asked a question and he said, why would a mid-gen refresh work when we are at the end of the Switch generation? And I find that question to be quite pertinent because it's really just talking about, hey, look, if we say we got a Pro, how can that even work? Like, does it even make any sense? We're almost done with Switch, so why would they release a mid-gen refresh? It doesn't really seem to fit logically. After all, Switch turns six years old on March 3rd, heck, the Wii only lasted six years, and that was a really big platform. The DS lasted, I don't know, six or seven years, so it would really logically speak to the fact that Switch is almost done, and if Switch is almost done, why the hell would you release an upgraded Switch that's only going to be on the market for a year? I find that to be a fascinating conversation that I want to have with you guys today. Now before I continue it, I want to remind you that we're actually doing some promotions right now, some giveaways. We have a thousand dollar giveaway right now for all new subscribers. All you have to do is just subscribe to the channel between now and 100,000 subscribers, and you're automatically entered for a chance to walk away with a thousand dollars cash. We have a giveaway going on also as well for the month of August for new subscribers, where any new subscriber in this month alone qualifies to enter for a $20 eShop gift card. Oh, and I didn't forget about all of you guys as well. Yeah, we'll have 100,000 celebration live stream giveaway event, of course, but besides that, we're actually having a giveaway for all subscribers right now for a grid Gameboy wall art. So you guys can go to the pinned comment description to enter that. In fact, I'll just give you the code for a bonus 20 entries today is winner. I know lowercase have a good day. Yesterday, by the way, some people had some issue with the Green Bay code. That's because it's small G, small B, so not capitalized like the city. Anyways, I want to get deeper into this conversation because I think there is some points that need to be understood. Now, if we just look at what Nintendo has stated, they've never once said they are making a new piece of Switch hardware. In fact, they didn't even say it and even outright sort of denied it before the Switch Lite and the Switch OLED came out, which could qualify as new Switch systems, even if they're not upgraded one. So Nintendo doesn't really play their hand and show early when they're going to be releasing new models of Switch. It's just not something they do. They pretty much ignore it or just give general statements like, we're always working on new hardware and they leave it at that. Now, Shintaro Furukawa has made some statements in the past. However, on how he would like to see Nintendo Switch have a longer than usual generation. Well, if we get a new platform at the end of 2023 or the end of 2024, honestly, that's a pretty typical generation. That's in that five to seven year mark that we have seen prior generations. We're like nine generations into this prior generations have lasted that long. Some of them significantly longer, but that was like the early generations. When it comes to stuff today, yeah, anywhere from five to seven years is a pretty typical generation. So if we stick to the typical generation timeline, it makes a lot of sense to presume we will get a Nintendo Switch two or if not a two, some other new hardware from Nintendo. Again, they've never said they're making new Switch hardware. So the next platform could be anything. Right? We don't really know. So you could just say whatever Nintendo's next generation devices makes sense to logically jump to that. But what if Shintaro Furukawa was never lying in the first place? Remember, he said things like we are in the middle of the Switchers life cycle for two and a half straight years. This is the first year where he didn't say they were in the middle of the Switches life cycle. Very interesting to note that. Also, this is the first year where he didn't deny that there was new Switch hardware in the works. In fact, asked Point Blank at the investors meeting back in April, you know, the one that wrapped up their fiscal year for last year. They were asked Point Blank for the following fiscal year, which currently runs through March of 2023. Will there be new Switch hardware? And he just outright said no comment. Now, they just did another financial briefing where they might have asked those questions again. And so far, nothing has come out of it. That Shintaro Furukawa has made any comment on new hardware. The only thing he said is we're planning to sell three Switch systems for the remainder of this fiscal year. Those three systems, obviously, as we know today, are Switch Lite, the normal Red Box Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch OLED. Of course, one of those could go away and get replaced with a different third system, but that's not really what we're debating. I don't even think the system has to launch this fiscal year. But if we take him at face value where he wants this generation to be longer than usual, to me, that's not five to seven years. That's eight, nine, maybe even a 10 year cycle. And you're simply not going to get to that eight, nine, ten year mark without something a little bit more powerful than what Switch is right now leading the way. And this wouldn't even be unheard of. The reason we use the Switch Pro moniker is because PlayStation did it with the PlayStation 4 Pro. iPhone does it with the iPhone 6 Pro or now with the S models or whatever they want to call it. I think they just kind of jumped number to number. Like it was what, the 13 last year? I think it's going to be the 14 this year. So they're bad to go in by numbers. But the point is that this common denominator of mid-gen refreshing and keeping the current hardware relevant is something a lot of companies have done, including Nintendo. New Nintendo 3DS? DSI, anybody? Hey, what about the Wii Mini? That was a really, really strange system. They also released a GameCube at one point with a DVD player. Granted, never released outside of Japan, but it was still a thing. So I find it fascinating when we look at what he said and consider, well, how could Nintendo extend the generation? They're on the downturn, right? They had 28 million in sales in 2020. They had 25 million last fiscal year. This current fiscal year, they're projecting just over 20. Next fiscal year, if they just kept the base switch, I'm sure they would be projecting under 20, maybe around 15 to 18. And then after that, they might be projecting around 10 million if they just kept the current switch. And that is a downturn. And when things are downturning and you want to reinvigorate the market, there's two ways to go. One is to release your next generation platform. This is something Sony has done many times over the years. The other is to obviously release a refreshed platform that's more powerful or just has enough power not to leave the current switch behind, but not necessarily to jump forward entire generations. And so what that does is it gets current switch owners to buy the better hardware that plays games at higher frame rates. Better, you know, better this, maybe they fix Joy-Con drift. So it gets a lot of the current switch market to rebuy switches and that lets the market, you know, extend another couple of years. That's the idea. Anyways, phones do this, tablets do this, technology does this all the time. So many times we get refreshes on CPUs and GPUs with TI models and KF models and KS models and all this stuff, right? They're always making these decisions to extend the life of their products for extra years. And I don't see that there's a situation where Nintendo couldn't be doing that. Now, we don't know that's the reality is we have no idea. We have rumors and reports and leaks, but we don't know any fact based information from the Nintendo themselves other than they're working on new hardware and they're not willing to deny a new switch coming out this year. That's it. That's all we know. For all we know, maybe they said that because of the Splatoon 3 OLED model. Maybe they considered that a new switch. I have no idea. I doubt it since that would be four models of switch being sold when he said only three would be sold. So I don't think they consider Splatoon 3 as a new model, just a special edition. So that's really the brux of the argument to me. Yes, we could still have a Switch Pro because because Nintendo wants this to be one of the longest generations, if not the longest generation in Nintendo history. And I can't blame them. Look at the games that they are about to have a billion in software sales by the end of this fiscal year, right? They're about to pass Game Boy and it's going to be Nintendo's second best selling system of all time. And definitely within, you know, a stone's throw of outselling the DS and potentially the PlayStation 2. Nintendo is that close and the switch is still popular enough. Staying at the top of the MPD sales charts in terms of units sold, staying well at the top of the Japanese charts at the top of the UK, at the top of all these other countries. So while Xbox and PlayStation are struggling by the time, Xbox and PlayStation can actually make enough stock PlayStation in particular to meet all their demand and oversaturate the market and be able to possibly outsell the switch at that point. That's pretty much at the end of next year. And Nintendo could have the manufacturer at that point to drop a Switch Pro, which could then reinvigorate the market and keep people excited about Nintendo Switch. That's the big thing is Switch has become such a big brand that we are about to enter the sixth anniversary. And its brand hasn't been tarnished yet. There hasn't been anything where people go, man, Switch, that sucks. It's a fad. It's clearly not. See, we sales were fad. They really peaked for two years. And then that was about it. Nintendo Switch is showing consistent sales over six full years. It's clearly not a fad. So Nintendo could do well to capitalize upon that. And yes, they could release a next generation platform. Absolutely. But if they want to get more life out of the current switch, keep selling Switch lights for years, keep selling Switch OLEDs for years. And then, yes, a Switch Pro, they could drop that mid gen refresh still. And it would be pretty close to the middle of the generation because if they drop it in 2023, say by the end of 2023, they drop that mid gen refresh and they don't release a new next generation platform until 2026. They just extended the life of Switch at least a year, if not an extra two to three years by dropping it. And that alone can make a mid gen refresh worth it. They did it with the new 3DS. They did it with the DSi. There is a history here where Nintendo would want to extend the life by dropping such a platform. And as we saw, at least with the new Nintendo 3DS, it quickly became the best selling system. Why? Because a lot of older 3DS owners wanted to upgrade. And that's the path Nintendo has here to keep Switch relevant. All those people that have gen one Nintendo Switches could be like, finally, I have a reason to upgrade. Or say they had a Switch Lite and like, man, I want to get one that docks the TV, but it'd be nice if it could outperform my current Switch Lite. Oh, here we go. And again, we're not talking about something astronomical here. They could drop a Switch that upscales the 4K in some fashion, but isn't technically a super powerful platform. It wouldn't take a lot. They could just double the performance of Switch, which in the past would have been a full generation. But as we're seeing with generational leaps, if you look at with the PlayStation 5, it's power leap from PlayStation 4 is massive. So we're seeing that next generation leaps are much larger than just doubling the power. And they could double the power of Switch, even double the RAM, everything. And it could feel like an old school next generation platform, but it wouldn't. And all the games running on it, at least from Nintendo, you know, third parties, we can't control what they do, but from Nintendo could still come out. Like Breath of the Wild 2 is still going to come out and be playable on your dang Switch lights and your 2017 Nintendo Switches. That's not going to change. And I don't think any game Nintendo makes moving forward would not go to the old platforms. And that's kind of the point. And I talked about this before with the cell phone model and how I thought that was maybe a smarter idea for Nintendo, except doing it, you know, not every year or every other year, but you know, every three, four years and you can kind of keep the Switch generation going. And they haven't really done that yet. They have released some quality of life improvements. Switch OLED is a quality of life improvement switch. It's not really, you know, new hardware, but it does it fix a few things even though it doesn't fix Joy-Con drift. So I'm just saying it makes some sense. I don't know what Nintendo is going to do. You don't know what Nintendo is going to do. None of us do. And I know a lot of people are tired of talking about this, but I'm just not one of those people that gets tired about talking about something that I actually desire. This would be like telling me I can't talk about Breath of the Wild 2 anymore just because we don't have any information on it. That's a weird conversation to broach with me when it's something I want to talk about. Or it's like talking that I can't start talking about Ryzen, the next Ryzen chips or the next AMD 4000 series GPUs because we don't have any factual information, just leaks and rumors. It's like, hey man, you know, I enjoy talking about tech. I'm a tech enthusiast. I'm a gaming enthusiast and I love looking forward to what's coming and speculating and talking about it. And this is just another one of those videos. Some of you will love it. Some of you will hate it. I know I get comments sometimes people are wondering, hey man, when are you gonna talk about Switch? You know, whatever. Again, some new hardware for Nintendo. And then other people are saying, man, I wish you would stop talking about it. Well, to the people that want me to stop, I've already stated in the past I'm not going to. But to the people that want me to stop, all I could say is you don't have to watch just because you got the notification, just because you saw it in your news feed, you didn't have to click, you know. In fact, not clicking, it'll slowly tell the YouTube algorithm you don't want to watch that content and then they'll stop suggesting it to you. And you can watch some of my other content. I know people at like, I don't make other content, but I mean, that's simply not true. We just made one about Pokemon cards being stolen and Sonic Frontiers earlier today. Yesterday we talked about the Hogwarts Legacy stuff. We talked about PlayStation and Xbox, you know, issues with the Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard purchasing, stuff like that. We talked about that. We talked about how I went full-time YouTube. We talked about how there was a weird bug in the Nintendo which is UI the day before, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like we were talking about a number of things, but am I gonna keep talking about this? Yes, am I trying to speak it into existence? Absolutely not, to be honest. I don't know what Nintendo's doing next. I literally have no idea. It could be a streaming stick and I've talked about that before that, hey, I don't know what they're doing. Nintendo could do anything they'd add. For all I know, they're releasing a phone and that's their next device. I honestly have no clue. I'm just speaking from personal desires combined with obviously the reports and rumors out there and then just adding my speculation to it because I enjoy the conversation. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely for me. And I first and foremost make my content for myself, then make it for my listeners. And to be honest, I just like this topic. When am I gonna talk about it again? I don't know. Now that I've talked about this, I'm not so sure I have much more to say. This was kind of like the final thing I had to say at least in the moment, but who knows? A few weeks could go by and all of a sudden a new idea pops in my head. So whatever, guys, I'm Nathan Rovell Jansson from Nintendo Prime. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in and I'll catch you in the next video.