New Nintendo Switch model announced for October
Nintendo has announced a new version of the Nintendo Switch, due out on 8 October this year. The Nintendo Switch OLED model will have a larger and brighter 7in screen, a wide kickstand for tabletop play, enhanced audio in handheld mode and 64GB of storage for games. Like the 2017 Nintendo
Switch, it can be slotted into a dock for playing on a TV at home, or taken out and played as a handheld console. The TV dock will also have a wired LAN port, an important addition for those who like to play competitively online.
An upgraded model of Nintendo’s successful console has been rumoured for the past year, and was at one point expected to be announced during E3 last June. It will be available on the same day as Metroid Dread, the most anticipated game in Nintendo’s 2021 lineup.
There are now three different versions: the original Switch, the Switch Lite, which cannot be connected to a TV, and the OLED model. All existing Nintendo Switch games are compatible with each version of the console.
More than 85m Switch consoles have been sold since its launch in 2017, and it has been selling out regularly during the pandemic, with demand boosted by the enormous success of 2020’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a game that sold more than 30m copies and has become emblematic of the creative ways that people socialised through video games in the Covid era. Nintendo recorded a profit of $4.4bn in its most recent fiscal year.