Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has just announced a new Nintendo Switch model will be hitting the shelves later in the year.
The new Switch, called the Nintendo Switch OLED Model is set to drop on October 7 and features a 7-inch OLED screen, a wide adjustable stand, and a wired LAN port. The console is also getting a storage upgrade from the standard 32GB to a bigger 64GB.
It will still come in the traditional red and blue colour combo as well as a new white edition.
The Australian price has been set at $539.95 which is $80 more than what the original Switch console launched at. It might, however, mean that prices for the older models will soon start to come down.
Fans are already expressing their disappointment at the announcement, with players complaining that the updates fix almost none of the existing issues with the console and give no incentive to buy it unless you don’t already own one.
One user on Reddit commented that the company appeared to have run out of features to showcase halfway through a two-minute trailer.
“[They] were just like, ‘all the stuff you can do on the regular Switch you can do on this one, I guess. Now with a kickstand and a LAN port’,” they wrote.
Nintendo has faced criticism for not fixing issues with joy-stick drift in games and a graphics system that lags well behind its competitors PlayStation and XBOX.
Rumours had suggested that the new updated console might be able to output in 4K definition to player’s televisions but Nintendo has confirmed that it will still use 1080p in TV mode and 720p in handheld mode.
The battery life is also thought to be roughly the same.
The biggest upgrade in the new model is of course the OLED screen which should be a noticeable improvement on the current LCD screen that the Switch uses.
Organic Light Emitting Diode – or ‘OLED’ – displays have the ability to turn each individual pixel on and off instead of going dark like an LCD display. This means true blacks can be achieved on screen and they also feature brighter whites meaning the contrast is much more defined.
It’s currently used in some of the top TVs, but with many users playing the Switch exclusively in TV mode, it may not offer all that much to fans of the console.
Still, the Switch is on track to be the best selling home gaming system of all time, with sales going through the roof during the pandemic.
Nintendo has so far sold 78 million Switch units worldwide since its launch in March 2017 and the console does not appear to be losing its popularity.
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