Nintendo says it won't release a new Switch in 2020
Despite previous rumors, there'll be no Switch Pro -- or any new model at all.
Nintendo will start selling a special Animal Crossing Switch in March, but it won't be releasing a brand new model this year. Shuntaro Furukawa, the gaming giant's president and CEO, has laid rumors to rest that an upgraded version of the console is on the way. In a call with investors, the executive said (PDF): "Please note that we have no plans to launch a new Nintendo Switch model during 2020." Instead, the company will focus on "communicat[ing] the appeal" of the current consoles and expanding their userbase.
Taiwanese publication DigiTimes claimed earlier this month that the company is releasing a new model sometime in mid-2020, with volume production to begin this first quarter. There were a lot of speculations that it was going to be the Switch Pro. We still don't know if Nintendo truly is working on a Pro version of the console, but Furukawa's statement makes it clear that fans won't be getting their hands on one this year even if a Pro model is in development.
Those who want to buy a Switch within the year have a few models to choose from, nevertheless. In the middle of 2019, Nintendo released an upgraded Switch that has a longer battery life than the original. A few months after that, it launched a purely portable iteration of the device called Switch Lite, which is available in three different colors and costs $100 less than the upgraded version of the regular console.
