Nintendo’s new Switch model has most of its improvements, like a bigger and better screen, on the unit itself. But its dock has also been upgraded with a new look and more features, and Nintendo says that if you only want that, and not a whole new system, then you can buy it separately.
A Nintendo spokesperson told Digital Trends that both colours of the dock, white and black, will be available to buy on their own. They won’t include any cables (current standalone dock purchases don’t either), and while no price or release date was announced, expect to take the current dock price of around $80 and push it a little higher to account for the added features.
Those features include…well, just one major thing, which is the addition of a LAN port, which will be fantastic news to anyone having to rely on a slow and/or patchy wi-fi connection. It also has rounded corners, which look a little nicer, and may also contribute to fewer scratched screens if you ever had to suffer from that particular issue.
The docks will only be available directly from Nintendo directly, meaning you won’t be able to grab one from GameStop or Amazon or whatever. And they’ll also be interchangeable, meaning you can use an old dock on a new Switch, and vice versa.
If you’re just joining us, the new Switch — officially named the Nintendo Switch (OLED Model) — is internally pretty much unchanged, aside from a doubling of its internal storage capacity from 32GB to 64GB, and will both display and output to TVs at the same resolutions. Most of the improvements come on the outside, with a newer and bigger screen measuring 7 inches, an increase from the original Switch’s 6.2 inches.
There’s also, perhaps most exciting of all from a purely practical standpoint, a vastly-improved kickstand, which now runs all the way across the back of the console instead of sticking out like a wobbly, precarious little fin.
It’ll be $539.95, and is out on October 8.
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