You are right about $350 price tag here. It sucks for consumers, but in the end we have to keep in mind that when Switch released at 300$ price tag, there weren't that many people who expected it to sell as well as it did. And probably Nintendo themselves didn't expect it either. That's why they had to keep the price at competitive level. But in 2021 situation is completely different, Switch is even more successful than extremely successful PS4 and already close to 90m consoles sold, so from company's perspective it makes sense to increase the price. Because they simply know, that it's still gonna sell at that price. Like others mentioned, it's the same as with iPhone. It costs 1000$ because people are willing to buy it for 1000$. So, in case of this new Switch model, I suppose it's a simple market research where Nintendo came to conclusion that they can increase price, earn more profits from just hardware itself, and people are still gonna buy it. Especially given that their competition is still more expensive and Nintendo is gonna sell more despite being a 4+ year old platform. Shitty for consumers, but nothing surprising here. It's just business.

How can you know that? Yeah, this is a different approach than forcing early adopters to upgrade, but you can't take that as granted. There are many other ways to stimulate the system relevance

The New3DS didn't leave earlier 3DS owners behind. The number of Switch base units is too high to be left behind as a market. Cyberpunk is more of a pure next gen game that should have never been released for base PS4/XBone. I would have been nice for the Switch OLED to have a boost option to unlock the Tegra X1, which can run 40% higher clocks. Anyway, maybe homebrew will allow that. Even Nintendo published games like Bowser's Fury and that Zelda slasher game are in need of more power right now.

Nintendo apologist here, and I've been wanting the Pro to be false this whole time. Wanna know why? Because I want Switch 2, that's why, and if the Pro comes out it will only delay the Switch 2 coming out even further. I want Switch 2 March 2023, exactly 6 years after Switch 1 came out March 2017, and the only way they are going to do that is if enough developers are sick of developing for older hardware and if enough consumers have reached their point of wanting some massive leap forward. Neither of those situations will happen by 2023 if they release a Pro in 2021. In fact, I'd imagine if they released a Pro right now that Switch 2 wouldn't come out until earliest 2024, and probably 2025, and that would suck. I don't want some pitiful minor bump upgrade that the Pro would be, I want the full glory that is the Switch 2. Pro would have a fraction of the stuff that Switch 2 would have, and there are multiple reasons for that:

-It would come out 2 years prior to Switch 2 (if history repeats itself looking at previous mid gen upgrades and their successors), making its hardware considerably weaker compared to Switch 2, so for 2 years basically (sometimes 1.5 years based on history) they would have some games made to take advantage of it, then move on to develop for Switch 2. That isn't a lot of time to develop many games on weaker hardware, making it not worth it to them.

-Nintendo isn't going to pump a bunch of R&D into making the Pro a super beefy device knowing that it would only appeal to probably 20 million buyers max. Casuals won't buy it, most current Switch owners won't buy it, and people that want a second device for a family member will probably stick with OG Switch or LITE as they would be a lot cheaper than a hypothetical $400+ Pro model.

Nintendo knows their consumers and they know how to make maximum profits out of each situation. They will let Switch continue to sell great, then well, then decently, then not so much, and then when it starts to really go downhill come out with a massive upgrade (Switch 2). Why do so many people want a silly Pro model knowing full well it will delay the coming of Switch 2, which will make the Switch Pro look like an absolute joke? And why, you may ask, do I think it will make it look like a joke? Let's look at Zelda through the years:

NES

SNES (not a huge leap)

N64 (huge leap)

GameCube (not a huge leap)

Wii (not a huge leap)

Wii U (huge leap forward)

Switch (not a huge leap)

Obviously Botw was held back by needing to work on GameCube as well, so we won't know this engines true potential until Botw 2 comes out, so I'll include Link's Awakening remake as well:

You can do this with Metroid, Mario, really any main series. Nintendo typically makes a console, then a slightly stronger one, sometimes even two slightly stronger ones in a row, before going for a huge upgrade. The Switch is basically a Wii U beefed up and shrunk down, so based on their history I expect Switch 2 to be a pretty massive leap forward (much more than a Switch Pro would be).

Wow. I felt the SNES was a huge leap and so was the Gamecube. N64 games ran at 4 fps and were ugly.

I hope Nintendo brings out a Lite with this new screen and audio enhancements.

The upgrade is mostly lost for those who only use the Switch in console mode and don't care about handheld mode (apart from the improved dock), but the mobile-only Lite would benefit a lot from the OLED screen, enhanced audio and larger storage.

Sorry, but this is a huge leap. While the NES sprites look basic, the SNES ones work very fine even by todays standards.

I guess Nintendo will watch the sales. If sales of OLED replace the OG Switch, they will phase out that model.

Sure, I could have found the best looking game for each system and then compared, but that would be difficult to compare as easily as the same series. Metroid Prime was amazing looking, but it isn't that much improved upon what the Metroid 64 prototype looked like, not like that prototype improved on Super Metroid. And Metroid Prime 2/3/Other M were not significant improvements over MP1, whereas MP4 will be a massive leap forward for those games because it skipped Wii U generation. If MP4 came out on Wii U and MP5 came out on Switch, most consumers (not hardcore tech obsessed people that are the vast minority) would be putting our glasses on to see the minor technical improvements from Wii U to Switch. Switch 2 and whatever games it has will be the next big Nintendo leap forward before another decade of stagnation.

4ps lol. Most people that play video games don't recognize or care about fps, that's just something the truly hardcore care about. It's behind resolution, which itself is less on the radar of most gamers compared to "graphics." We can project on this website, since we are all hardcore gamers, that most gamers out there are, but that isn't reality. The vast majority of gamers don't pay attention to gaming websites, and there are probably more people in the world that believe in flat Earth than those that have heard of Digital Foundry.