Thursday, April 16, 2020

Nintendo Switch 10.0.0 Update Teasing New Model?

Nintendo Switch logo

Nintendo has released a new major update for the Nintendo Switch this week, which comes with the ability to transfer data from your system memory to a SD card, as well as re-mapping the buttons of your controllers. This is certainly nice to have, but the interesting part is what normal users can't see. According to Mike Heskin on Twitter it points at a new hardware model "nx-abcd" with "evidence of a secondary display of sorts".

As someone, who's still holding out on buying a Nintendo Switch, this gives me hope that waiting over three years might eventually be rewarded. Now all this new Switch model needs is a shiny, golden Zelda edition right at launch.

It's also curious how it might support a second screen. Using two screens to play is the one thing that the Nintendo Switch currently can't emulate, even thought for most games there are ways around this, as demonstrated by Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch or Super Mario Maker 2. But there are certainly games that would require it or profit from a second screen.

A good example are the Zelda HD remasters on the Wii U, where the second screen could be used for maps and such. If they were to port The Wind Waker HD to Switch right now, it would loose one of the things that made it actually better and more convenient than the GameCube original. But on a new Switch that somehow supports a second screen, it would still be possible to carry over these advantages.

So, let's see whether Nintendo has something to announce about this in June...

2 comments:

Tim said...

If they do this I'll actually be pissed because it means they removed those features from Breath of the Wild for no reason whatsoever.

TourianTourist said...

Well, they could take this even further by publishing an update for Breath of the Wild, which lets you use such a second screen for the Sheikah Slate features... But only on Nintendo Switch! :D:D