Nintendo Says the Switch Lite Is the Only New Switch Hardware Releasing This Year

Nintendo’s reveal of the Nintendo Switch Lite we met with the usual array of responses and questions from those who said they’d be buying one on day one to others who wondered why someone would buy this over a normal Switch. One of the questions that some might’ve thought about though was whether or not this was the only Switch that Nintendo has in the works. Previous reports suggested that Nintendo had two different consoles in the works – one of which is the Lite that’s now been announced – so could Nintendo have the second half of those reports in the works as well?

If it is indeed working on another Nintendo Switch model besides the Lite, Nintendo isn’t talking about it just yet. CNET spoke to Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser about plans for the Switch Lite and said that there are no plans to upgrade the base version of the Switch that people have become accustomed to at this time. The site also reported that this will be the only new Switch hardware that’s releasing this holiday which means that if we do indeed see another version of the Switch at some point, it won’t be during this year.

For the uninitiated who are unfamiliar with the possibility of another Switch besides the Lite being released, the first talks of the base Switch getting an upgrade surfaced earlier in the year when a report claimed that two different Switches were in the works at Nintendo. Another report which came right after the first corroborated some of these details and said Nintendo would be targeting different audiences with the devices. The language was familiar to the initial report that said one device would target more casual gamers while the other would have “enhanced features” that would amount to a more powerful console. The existence of the upgraded Switch was questioned in later discussions and reports, though evidence of the Lite remained strong amid leaks and other details.

While this answer from Bowser means that there’s not another version of the Switch releasing this year alongside the Lite, it doesn’t totally rule out the possibility that we’ll see one in the future. Nintendo could very well have the second one planned still and just isn’t ready to reveal it yet. Either way, expect the Switch Lite to be the new option for this year when it releases on September 20th.