In early July, Nintendo shown off the switch OLED model to the gaming world. The reception well wasn’t great. A few like but most of the gaming community especially Nintendo fans wanted more. By more I mean they wanted the long rumor switch pro. Instead of a major upgrade, we got a very minor upgrade. To me this brings up the question, does the OLED model needed to see the light of day at all?
Who is this made for? My answer is the Japanese and casual market. If you think that the switch is popular in America? It is nothing compare to the popularity in the land of the rising sun. Right now 20,018,278 unit have been sold in Japan. In a country with very long work days, long school days, and one television in a home you can understand the allure of a home console that you can take on the go is intriguing and beloved. There is no doubt that is OLED model will sale well in Japan. Nintendo is definitely focusing on the market in their homeland.
For the rest of the gaming world, it is a different story. They wanted a switch pro with more power. Power is not the end all be all but it is important. Nintendo seems to have trouble understanding this. They always made odd decisions with their consoles. The N64 not being CD base or the WII U in general. Don’t get me wrong a switch pro will not compete with the PS5 and the XBOX series X/S in raw power, but more power can made a great gaming experience even more amazing. Just imagine playing breath of the wild 2 in 4K, with a bigger world to explore, Link having more abilities to his move set, and more. Things like this can’t be done without more power. Putting in more RAM, memory, and can play in 4K would had been great. A lot of the time Nintendo doesn’t care about power.
Now in the part I must be fair. Maybe Nintendo wanted to make a switch pro but they couldn’t . With the worldwide semiconductors storage that is cause by the virus, Nintendo was unable to get the components they needed to make a switch pro. With plenty of OLED screens still available, so Nintendo may had decided to make a plan B.
Back to the question, do the OLED model needed to exist? My answer is no. I can understand why they made a refresh for the switch to stay relevant but still it wasn’t necessary to me. The switch is still selling very well despite the hybrid is about five and a half years old now. So why waste money and effort on this? Once again the lack of semiconductors around the could had played a role of why there is no switch pro. Nintendo could now be saving and gathering all the semiconductors and other components they need for their successor to the switch.
Even with my opinion, preorders for the OLED model is selling very well. Heck maybe I will change my mind and buy one.