Nintendo Switch Pro rumor looks legit, thanks to this Nvidia email
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Nintendo Switch Pro rumors have been rekindled as an Nvidia employee appears to have confirmed the existence of the chip allegedly powering the device.
No official announcement of the Nintendo Switch Pro has been made yet. But an Nvidia leak posted on the r/GamingLeaksandRumours (opens in new tab) subreddit almost seems to confirm that the Tegra239 SoC (system on a chip) is real, through an email from an Nvidia employee.
Rumor has it that the Tegra239 has been around since last year. Twitter tech leaker kopite7kimi originally brought the chip to light (opens in new tab) in June 2021, when they suggested that the next-gen Nintendo Switch would be powered by a “custom” Tegra234.
This also matches information found in the Nvidia leak from March this year, which referenced “NVN2” (probably the successor to the Switch’s NVN graphics API) and a specific mention of the T239 chip.
A big boost?
There’s no question that the Nintendo Switch’s Tegra X1 chip is an outdated piece of hardware and certainly isn’t the best choice for large-scale games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Commentators in the Reddit thread largely agree that the Tegra239 would be as powerful as the PS4. That’s probably not the generational jump you’d hope for, but I imagine it’s more palatable to third-party developers and publishers, who may then find it easier to port their games to the Switch Pro without relying on cloud-based versions.
For my money, it points to the Switch Pro being a mid-gen upgrade rather than a new console. Not unlike the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X. I think this would be the right move for Nintendo, and echoes President Shuntaro Furukawa’s comments earlier this year that the Switch is in the midst of its life cycle.
A potential Switch Pro might still struggle to run 4K resolutions, but rumors suggest it has some tricks up its sleeve to make up for that. That NVN2 leak from earlier this year refers to Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling technology, which uses AI to boost resolutions and framerates without impacting overall performance.
I’m cautiously optimistic about the existence of the Nintendo Switch Pro right now. And let’s face it, Nintendo needs more powerful hardware for its big players like Zelda and Metroid Prime 4. And hey, we might even see the Switch Pro launch alongside Tears of the Kingdom, like Twilight Princess did with the Wii and Breath of the Wild did for the Switch.