Summary
Nintendomight be winding down when it comes to theSwitchwith an official announcement about its successor coming before April 2025, but it certainly didn’t feel that way during Tuesday’s Direct. Not only because of the slew of games revealed that will launch on Switch between now and the end of 2024, and some in 2025, but also because despite the (sort of) promise of a new console coming, Nintendo still has one more special edition Switch to release.
Revealed aftershowing off an all-new Zelda game, Echoes Of Wisdom, Nintendo confirmed a Hyrule Edition of its Switch Lite will launch on the same day. The Switch Lite is gold all over with black sticks and shoulder buttons, and a golden Hylian crest on the back. There’s also a tiny triforce symbol under the right stick.
Echoes Of Wisdom and its gold Switch Lite will be released on May 10, 2025, joining a host of games that will fill out the remainder of what was a very empty second half of the year for Nintendo before the Direct. Somewhat surprising that Nintendo has gone with an entirely new Zelda game when the expectation for a while has been that allegedly completed Switch ports of Zelda games would be the ones revealed today.
Nintendo Switch Lite: Hyrule Edition
Even more surprising is that there will be a new model of Switch before Nintendo moves onto the Switch 2. The last models werethe Animal Crossing editions, although a lot less fuss was made of those since they were exclusive to certain storefronts. Before that, there was the Mario Red OLED Switch that accompaniedSuper Mario Bros. Wonder’s release. Criticized for the simplicity of its design, I can’t imagine the Hyrule Edition will be hit with nearly as much negativity.
Nintendo is clearly keen to keep those Switch sales coming even with a new console announcement looming. At last count, the Switch had crept past the 140 million sold mark, which means it is in with a chance of becoming the best-selling console of all time. A strong chance as even without the Hyrule Edition Switch Lite, sales are still strong, especially for a console in its seventh year. The gold Switch Lite will bolster those sales and give the console an even better chance of surpassing thePS2andNintendo DS.
