This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported,

that Nintendo is supposedly working on a new model

of the Switch, dated for sometime next year,

possibly as early as summer.

Now this is something

that we have been long speculating about.

I feel like almost as soon as a half a year

after the original Switch came out.

A lot of people were already wondering,

well, what would they do if they made a new version?

Whether that's a XL, a pro, a pocket,

some kind of new version.

What could they improve?

Now so far, based on what the Wall Street Journal

is reporting the only thing

that's really been talked about from Nintendo

is the idea of improving the screen

with better LCD technology.

The main two takeaways from it would be:

potentially better battery life and a brighter screen,

but those kinda changes alone don't exactly justify

an entire model refresh.

So let's talk about what other changes Nintendo

could possibly be making for a new Nintendo Switch.

Now when we're talking about the Switch,

it's important to note that the Switch itself is really just

the tablet portion of the system.

I know often times people picture it as one whole unit

when it's in portable mode,

but really that's the Joy-Cons being attached to the Switch

and they're their own kinda separate thing.

And that partially influences what Nintendo

could potentially do with the new one.

We'll get to that a little later,

but for now lets just talk about what kinda changes

we could see happen with the main Switch body.

First, we've already mentioned the fact

that it sounds like Nintendo wants

to give it a brighter screen,

but another possibility is a larger screen as well.

Now, it's not very likely that

they'll increase the size of the Switch unit

itself because that kind of messes with

the whole dynamic of having Joy-Cons

that can slot into the side unless they make

large Joy-Cons.

Then that's the whole thing with where new stuff

doesn't match up to the old stuff

and that's just a whole issue

that I'm hoping doesn't happen.

But assuming that it is maintaining

the same general portions and sizes

it's still possible that we could get

a larger screen size by reducing the bezel.

Because the bezel on the Switch is fairly large noticeable.

So it is something that we could see a little bit bigger.

Physically another possible change that I would

personally love to see,

I mean once again, this has always been one

of the biggest nit picky arguments about the Switch

itself but let's change the kickstand.

Please. Somehow.

Maybe something that doesn't quite as easily break off.

I mean I know the idea is that if it breaks off

it's easy to reinsert but if that happens

multiple times it gets the point it's

just this thing that doesn't set right.

Let's just. Let's just overhaul that whole system.

Please.

Now, physically that's

honestly it on my end for requests.

Like I said, I don't think we can do things

like make it a larger or smaller body

because then that gets into a whole territory

of actually being a separate system

from the current ecosystem.

But there is some stuff internally we could change.

For instance, I really would like to see

just a bit more power in the system.

I'm not talking about some kind of major overhaul

or getting some kind of 4K supportive Switch.

Which would actually be really cool.

But, you know, something a little more realistic.

I just want a little more power for the sake of

just smoothness for gameplay.

You know, There's a lot of games right now

that aren't fully optimized for either portable or home.

There are actually games portable is great

and then if you are playing on docked mode

you're getting small frame rate reductions.

There's other games where if you're in home mode

it looks great but if you're doing things

handheld there's resolution drops

and just all kinds of issues.

So if we could just get just a little more power

to even out a lot of those issues.

I would really like that.

Now the other big question is,

what happens to the Joy-Cons themselves?

Are we going to see any kind of revision for those

if there's a new Switch?

Cuz once again we still run into the same problem

of if we want to make sure that

any kind of new stuff still works

with older, current Switch stuff

they have to be roughly the same size still

or at least have the same kind of rail size

to be able to attach to the side of the Switch.

But there is another limitation to worry about

with Joy-Cons as well

and that's Nintendo's obsession with the ability to use

them as their own singular controller when held sideways.

Cuz there's a lot of stuff that might make a lot of sense

when using the Switch in handheld mode

or using a pair of Joy-Cons at the same time.

That doesn't necessarily make sense

for using a single Joy-Con on its own.

Part of the reason why Joy-Cons aren't quiet as comfortable

as they potentially could be is cuz Nintendo wants you

to be able to hold them like this or like this.

But if like I said they dropped the idea

of having both those options available,

a pro option could offer a better

more contoured grip design that could make them

way more comfortable in either situation

where using two at once.

Something that is a little more unlikely,

but I think may be possible is also adjusting the size

of the Joy-Con's,

Once again you can't mess with it too much

cuz you want to make sure it can still work

with modern systems.

At least I hope that's something that Nintendo cares about.

But all that really matters for Joy-Cons to slide on

the Switch itself is that the rail sizes match up.

So as long as the rails are right.

You could potentially make a larger Joy-Con as well

for those people that find the smaller size to

just be way too uncomfortable.

Now another big question is if this actually is happening

we're getting a kind of revised Switch,

what is it going to be called?

Uh, Nintendo doesn't have a deep history of revising systems

when it comes to their main line consoles

but they have done a ton of revisions

when it comes to handhelds.

And based on what we've seen in the past with those

there's really kinda two forms of launch Nintendo uses.

Either they take the simplest route possible

and just call it something like

"The New Version" for instance.

If this new Switch has nothing noticeably,

super different about it.

They could just call it "The New Nintendo Switch"

and honestly, I'm leaning to that

being the most likely answer.

However, something else that Nintendo has also done

is if there is any kind of major, significant,

noticeable change they'll name it after

that specific change.

Whether that's making it larger, calling it "The Switch XL,"

making it smaller, calling it "The Switch Pocket."

If it offers 4K they could call it "The Switch 4K."

Any kind of combination like that depending on what

that most significant change is could influence the name.

Look there are a lot of things Nintendo could possibly do

with a revised Switch.

And I think everyone has their own little wish list

of things they would like to see

or think they really need to change.

Honestly, personally I lean towards the idea that

I really think Nintendo's probably

going to be somewhat minimal with it.

I don't think their looking to radically change

the design of the Switch or how it works.

I think if anything we're just going to see things

like better battery life, brighter screens,

hopefully larger screens, and just in general

some performance ups would be really nice

but we don't know yet.

We're running off very little right now

and hopefully we're going to find out more soon.