It’s only the seventh day of the year and wild Nintendo rumors are already circulating online, so grab some salt and read on.
Well-known data miner and console hacker SciresM has reportedly discovered new details about the rumored Switch ‘Pro’ model by searching firmware code – although they warn that these details may not be perfectly accurate and there is also quite a bit of speculation.
With this in mind, the revised system is apparently code-named “Aula” and uses a Mariko SoC. In addition, it is believed to support both docked and handheld play, 4K support somehow and possibly an OLED display. The Realtek chip can also reside in the dock instead of the system.
Here’s the full breakdown from SciresM, via ResetEra:
Nintendo is actually working on a new model with improved display stuff and it’s been ~ 1.5-2 years. I personally believe it is 4K given the signs I see in the firmware but that’s not confirmed yet and could be wrong.
The new hardware is code-named Aula and uses a Mariko SoC. There are a lot of references to it in code (sphere already supports the new screen in theory).
The tablet itself definitely has an upgraded screen, I don’t know if it’s 4K.
Aula has firmware support, a Realtek chip that also advertises itself as a “4K UHD multimedia SoC”, hence my belief that it is 4K. That chip may be in a new dock and not the tablet, but there’s no way to tell by the firmware code yet.
Aula explicitly supports handheld mode. It’s not just docked; that’s Calcio, which seems like it’s for internal use only / never release as Calcio has no game card slot and no battery.
You can check the display code of the boot sys module if you are curious. The new screen does not support power management pwm, it has its own vendor specific bs which I had to reverse engineer and implement a month or two ago.
Mariko has * significantly * better cooling and battery life. It is a bona fide die for the original generation.
My best guess (pure speculation, no firmware indication that this is the case) is that if they need extra performance, they will push to higher clock speeds across the board.
But yes, I speculate that games will be like “DSi Enhanced” games, or how some games took advantage of PS4 Pro despite working on PS4.
I checked my previous threads with hexkyz, the upgraded tablet screen is OLED screen. Probably not a higher resolution on the tablet itself so I think the 4k realtek chip is probably a new dock than I thought it was.
Vanilla probably won’t.
We are in the realm of speculation. Aula has a new GPIO that redbox has no relation to support for this, so I’d guess for now that redbox units won’t support the new one.
Switch ‘Pro’ rumors have been circulating for a few years now, and a number of industry analysts still believe it will come out at some point this year. You can catch up with all previous developments in our comprehensive guide.
What are your own thoughts on this? Do you think it’s the real deal or is it just as fake as that fake Nintendo Direct leak? Tell us about it in the comments below.