© Nintendo LifeNvidia – the company that makes the Tegra X1 Mariko “system on a chip” that powers the Switch and Switch Lite – is reportedly ending production on the SoC this year, fueling further speculation that a Switch Pro is on the way.
The news comes from Gamereactor, who spoke with a source close to the subject. The source says production of the Tegra X1 Mariko will end in 2021, but did not elaborate on which chip will replace it in Nintendo’s supply chain.
It is fair to assume that Nintendo will ensure that it will have a healthy stock of Tegra X1 Mariko chips before production comes to an end, but that begs the question – if the report is true and Nintendo thinks the Switch is only halfway through its life. useful, what happens after this year?
A logical answer would be that Nintendo will eliminate the original Switch model and its brother ‘Lite’ in favor of new versions of both models, as it did with the 3DS and 2DS when the New 3DS and the New 2DS were made available.
Although Switch Pro has not yet been officially confirmed and Nintendo has stated that it has no plans for new hardware in the near future, a report that it placed a large order for OLED panels made by Samsung suggests that an updated hardware SKU is fact, on the way; an improved SoC made by Nvidia would be a pretty reasonable addition to expect if the console offers a performance boost over the original version.
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