I have a theory that the intended to do it in 2020-/2021, but COVID chip shortages and such threw a wrench into their plans, they already had their hands on the OLED panels they planned to use for them, but couldn’t get whatever they needed for the rest of the upgrade, so they came out with the OLED to use them up because they decided by the time things normalized and they could ramp up production on the refresh it would’ve been to late in the switch lifecycle to be worth it since they were already kind of pushing it to begin with.
I have always sort of wondered if the switch was poised to be refreshed at that time but then since chips were having so many supply chain issues and regular switches were flying off the shelves they decided to hold off on releasing whatever is waiting in the wings. The only fear I have of this being true is that the refresh has a power that would have been slightly outdated in 2020.
The game Fire Emblem Engage was complete in 2021 and was originally slated to be released that year as a 30th anniversary game for the franchise, but according to sources at Intelligent Systems its release was delayed two years because of COVID related issues, which if the game was done and just sitting on the shelf, I would imagine had to do with supply chain complications. If a game can be delayed that long by those issues, it wouldn’t be too hard to believe that console upgrades could be slowed by that too.
Switch should have been refreshed a few years ago. I’m not holding my breath Nintendo does it now.
I have a theory that the intended to do it in 2020-/2021, but COVID chip shortages and such threw a wrench into their plans, they already had their hands on the OLED panels they planned to use for them, but couldn’t get whatever they needed for the rest of the upgrade, so they came out with the OLED to use them up because they decided by the time things normalized and they could ramp up production on the refresh it would’ve been to late in the switch lifecycle to be worth it since they were already kind of pushing it to begin with.
I have always sort of wondered if the switch was poised to be refreshed at that time but then since chips were having so many supply chain issues and regular switches were flying off the shelves they decided to hold off on releasing whatever is waiting in the wings. The only fear I have of this being true is that the refresh has a power that would have been slightly outdated in 2020.
The game Fire Emblem Engage was complete in 2021 and was originally slated to be released that year as a 30th anniversary game for the franchise, but according to sources at Intelligent Systems its release was delayed two years because of COVID related issues, which if the game was done and just sitting on the shelf, I would imagine had to do with supply chain complications. If a game can be delayed that long by those issues, it wouldn’t be too hard to believe that console upgrades could be slowed by that too.