Evidence points to another Switch hardware revision on the horizon

Enlarge / Could changes be coming to the Tegra X1 chip that powers the Nintendo Switch?

Wednesday’s announcement of the Switch Lite put to rest months of credible rumors that a miniature, portable-focused Switch was on the horizon. But Nintendo still has yet to confirm the other side of some of those rumors: suggestions that the company is planning to upgrade the Switch’s internal hardware in the near future.

Nintendo CEO Doug Bowser recently told CNET that no further updates to the original Switch hardware are coming this year. But that hasn’t stopped Nintendo-watchers from trying to glean information about Nintendo’s future hardware plans from various tea leaves.

Following the evidence

The most concrete of these hints is an FCC request (noticed by The Verge) that Nintendo filed July 2, seeking a “class II permission change” for the original Switch model. The request says the new hardware revision will feature a “change of SoC type,” a “change of NAND memory type,” and a new CPU board to accommodate those changes.