The Nintendo Switch has had monumental first year, in which it has already outsold its predecessor the Wii U in lifetime sales, and Nintendo is now stating their big plans for this year. Usually companies tend to upgrade the hardware on their newer consoles, but it looks like Nintendo will be putting their focus into other aspects of the Switch for this year instead.
According to the Wall Street Journal, reports say that instead of revamping the Switch’s hardware the company will instead work on upgrading the hybrid console’s online features and adding more peripherals in order to increase sales numbers. The report also says that Nintendo is aiming to add peripherals that will specifically use the console’s USB-C port. In terms of online features, games are currently free to play online but that will change coming later this year in September. Nintendo has also stated that they will offer incentives to get people to sign up for their online subscription, but have provided no specifics on what these incentives might be at this time.
The choice to not upgrade the Switch’s hardware wasn’t really unexpected. Some fans may have been hoping that the Switch would get a “new look” after it’s one year anniversary but, Nintendo typically waits after two years before making any major hardware updates to any of its home consoles. Although Nintendo released new hardware versions for many of their portable consoles within their first two years, the Switch is a console that can be played on on the go or at home on a television, so there was never any predetermined estimate on how Nintendo would go about bringing about hardware updates.