A reader tries to explain why none of the Nintendo E3 leaks panned out and suggests the Switch Pro, as currently rumoured, doesn’t exist.
We all knew E3 2021 wouldn’t be a great one and although Microsoft and Nintendo did okay, given the circumstances, I think everyone pretty much forget it happened about a day later. This was made worse by the fact that most of the announcements leaked out ahead of time. Almost all the rumours, from Battlefield 2042 to Guardians Of The Galaxy, turned out to be correct, except for anything to do with Nintendo…
That’s not surprising. I can only imagine what Nintendo does with people they catch leaking their information, but I would not want to be on the receiving end of it. We’re talking about the company that cancelled a deal with Netflix to make a Zelda show because Netflix purposefully leaked news of it ahead of time. Nintendo hates leaks more than they love money, and they love money a great deal.
I still can’t out work out what’s going on with the rumoured new Donkey Kong game. It sounds like it would be true, but E3 has been and gone and the anniversary is in two weeks so it’s really hard to imagine it’s happening. Did it get cancelled because people found out about it? That sounds too extreme even for Nintendo but the one thing you should never do with Nintendo is try to apply logic to their actions or try to predict them.
That’s not me suggesting anything they do is dumb or wrong – they’re the 131-year-old company that’s been making classic video games for 40 years and I’m a know-nothing schlub that can barely make the rent most months – but what I’m trying to say is that they cannot be predicted because they’ve survived as long as they have by not doing the obvious. However, there are certain patterns that make some decisions more likely than others.
The one thing you learn with Nintendo is that they are very frugal. They have a reputation now for their consoles being low tech and while some people point out that wasn’t always the case, especially with the SNES and N64, the tech was still very cleverly designed so that it was not overly expensive and still turned a profit (Nintendo famously made more money with the N64 than Sony did with the PlayStation 1).
This alone should be all the proof you need that the Switch Pro does not exist, or at least not the do-everything super Switch Pro of the rumours. Just look at the New Nintendo DS or the Game Boy Color for examples of what Nintendo thinks is worthwhile for a console upgrade. These were very minor upgrades, where the differences were either not easily noticeable by a non-expert or were the bare minimum of what the name implied – as with the Game Boy Color.
The idea that the Switch Pro is going to use a top-end ray-tracing chip from Nvidia is so obviously not true, and yet it was widely reported and seemed to be the latest in a long line of rumours from reputable sources. Sources which, as GC pointed out, were actually more trustworthy than usual for video games, and yet they were the only ones not proven to be true.
I can maybe, just maybe, imagine Nintendo using the cheapest possible new chip to enable DLSS so they can have non-native 4K but for me that is the maximum I’d predict happening for the Switch Pro if it ever does exists. I don’t think it will though. I personally think Nintendo will just go straight to a Switch 2 and not split their current userbase. The Switch can’t go on forever but clearly it’s not out this year and at the moment games are the priority, not new hardware.
Microsoft and Sony have done a very good job of convincing everyone that exclusive games are the best reason to buy a new console and that actually plays directly into Nintendo’s hands, because nobody makes high quality exclusives better than them. It even takes the pressure off them from needing to make a new console anytime soon because, by their rivals’ own admissions, it’s not the hardware that’s important but the games.
Of course, Nintendo could announce the Switch Pro tomorrow and I’ll immediately look a fool. But that’s fine, it’ll only prove my central point, which is that you cannot predict Nintendo and it’s madness to think otherwise. Even and especially when the rumours are all convinced they’re going to do something… only for it to never happen.
By reader Fenton
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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