A so-called "Nintendo Switch Pro" has been discussed for a long, long time now, though with nothing concrete to prove its existence. There have been a lot of reports and circumstantial evidence to suggest that there certainly was a "Switch Pro" in development at one point, but it's a lot of smoke without fire. It's been a while since something more concrete has appeared regarding its fate, but now we may finally have something thanks to the Digital Foundry Direct Weekly podcast. According to John Linneman, citing several developers, there seemed to be a mid-generation Nintendo Switch update in the works that was eventually canceled.

The reason this is interesting is that the number of leaks and rumors purporting for there to be a "Switch Pro" came to a head roughly a year ago. Since then, we haven't heard much at all, and the Nintendo Switch has some aging hardware with an Nvidia Tegra X1 SoC from 2015. Digital Foundry is well regarded for its in-depth testing and is understood to have well-placed industry sources. For example, Digital Foundry was the first to leak that the Switch would have an Nvidia Tegra X1 SoC, and it also confirmed ahead of its release that the device would have different clock speeds when docked versus undocked.

Part of the reason for its cancelation, Linneman speculates, is that Nintendo is worried about having another Gamecube or Wii U situation on its hands. While both consoles were enjoyable, they faced terrible sales figures after massively successful consoles. The Gamecube sold poorly, then was succeeded by the Wii which is one of the most successful games consoles of all time. Going from that to the Wii U (which sold just over 13 million consoles) and then to the Nintendo Switch shows that currently, the company seems to only succeed in every second generation.

It makes sense that there's some weirdness in the Nintendo camp, though. The Switch OLED, while a beautiful console with a great screen, doesn't have much else by the way of upgrades. As well, Genshin Impact was once previously announced for the Nintendo Switch in January 2021 and, since then, has disappeared into thin air. Mihoyo, the game's developer, refutes that it's canceled as well, as the company's global PR specialist reaffirmed in May it was still committed to its launch. It could well be the case that it was being developed for a Switch Pro (given that the game is pretty resource intensive), but that's purely speculation.

Nevertheless, it's interesting to get a bit of insight into what may (or may not) be happening behind closed doors at Nintendo. Linneman states that he doesn't expect there to be any kind of Switch successor in 2023, potentially giving the current generation another year of being the flagship Nintendo console before a successor comes along.

Source: Digital Foundry