Nintendo denies new Switch model again—but with an important difference

Rumors have been swirling of a new, more powerful Nintendo Switch model for years now. While the company isn’t making any official announcements just yet, its response to a question on that topic during a recent investor Q&A may be more revealing than it first appears.

Bloomberg‘s Takashi Mochizuki offered a translation of Nintendo’s latest answer on Twitter, and pointed out a very telling shift in the language behind Nintendo’s denial.

According to Mochizuki, when asked if a new Nintendo Switch model would be released this year, Nintendo responded that it’s not planning to announce a hardware revisions “anytime soon,” citing the upcoming releases of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury and Monster Hunter Rise as the current focus.

As Mochizuki notes, this is a drastic departure from how Nintendo has fielded similar questions in the past. Almost one year ago to the day, Nintendo said in a similar investor call that it had no plans to launch a new Switch revision in 2020. That’s obviously a much more definitive statement.

Parsing this new response even more carefully, we might note that Monster Hunter Rise releases as the end of March. If Nintendo doesn’t want to distract from the game by talking about new hardware, that still means they could technically announce a new, more powerful Switch as soon as April. Still, if we’re anticipating a late summer or fall release—the Switch Lite arrived in late September 2019 after a July announcement—that may still be a little too soon.

As for what we might expect from a new Nintendo Switch? The most common rumors say the system will support 4K resolution when docked, though even that’s not certain. Other oft-purported features include larger internal storage, a better screen for handheld mode, and an improved processor.

Obviously, however, none of this will be certain until Nintendo plays its hand.