What you need to know
- Bloomberg reports that Samsung will start production on OLED displays as early as June 2021.
- The new Switches will have 7-inch, 720p OLED displays, which would consume less battery.
- Nintendo has denied that any new Switches are coming "anytime soon."
We've been hearing a lot of rumblings about the as-yet unconfirmed new Nintendo Switch, which has been called the Switch Pro or the Super Switch. Now, Bloomberg is reporting that Samsung has teamed up with Nintendo to manufacture OLED displays for a Switch with a much larger display.
According to the report, which cites people familiar with the plan, the new Switch will include 7-inch, 720p OLED panels. The current Switch has a 6.2-inch LCD screen that is also capable of 720p resolution (the Swich Lite is 5.5 inches). If the article is accurate, that would mean the new Switch would have a larger display that would potentially consume less battery, since pixels on OLED panels can be switched on individually. OLED panels also produce a deep contrast picture over LCD or LED panels, which means more vibrant picture quality. That means the best Nintendo Switch games will look great, even at a lower resolution.
The inclusion of a 720p display is an interesting one. Previous reports about a Nintendo project, codename Aula (which many believe to be the new Switch), said it could potentially overclock speeds and has firmware that can support a 4K chip. However, users will still be able to get 4K graphics when the console is docked.
While Nintendo said following a February financial presentation that people shouldn't expect a new Switch "anytime soon," its still likely that the company will release a new Switch in 2021. We didn't see a new model in 2020 (likely due to the pandemic) so the 2019 version will become outdated soon. Nintendo typically releases a few versions of a console approximately every year, so a 2021 release would line up.
The Bloomberg article also notes that Samsung will begin mass production of the displays in June and are slated for shipment in July.
