Mini, XL, or Pro - Where will Nintendo take the Switch next?

After starting out my Nintendo Switch ownership with the console almost permanently docked (thank Zelda and multiplayer Mario Kart for that), I've been playing it more in handheld mode of late.

Gonner, Shantae, The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth+, and now Golf Story suit the up close and personal feel, I've found.

However, a recent injury has got me to thinking about the hardware revision that could well lie around the corner. A smaller Switch would certainly be much less of a pain in the neck - quite literally in my case.

But could Nintendo take things in another direction?

It's worth pointing out that this isn't just idle speculation. Nintendo has a proven history of revising its handheld consoles over their extended lifespans.

The original Game Boy gave way to the Game Boy Pocket and (in Japan) the Game Boy Light - both smaller, lighter, more efficient devices with clearer displays. The Game Boy Advance yielded similar advances with the Game Boy Advance SP (pictured) and Game Boy Micro, while the Nintendo DS was replaced by the Nintendo DS Lite and the Nintendo DSi.

Interestingly, the DS family also spawned Nintendo DSi XL - a device that was made bigger than the original device in the interest of increased usability.

It's a trick that was continued with the Nintendo 3DS, which was followed up with the Nintendo 3DS XL. Indeed, the 3DS has been the most-revised Nintendo device to date, with a simplified Nintendo 2DS, improved New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL, and now the New Nintendo 2DS XL.

Of course, Nintendo's history of tweaks is only instructive up to a point. After all, the Switch isn't a pure handheld.

Indeed, as a direct follow-up to the Wii U rather than the 3DS, it could be argued that it should be viewed in the light of Nintendo's home console history. And Nintendo doesn't tend to revise its console systems in anything like the same way as its handhelds.

Still, there is an interesting precedent to be drawn from Nintendo's main rivals. Both Sony and Microsoft have recently launched dramatically enhanced versions of their PS4 and Xbox One consoles.

Containing a sizeable dollop of extra power and the ability to run 4K games, these are mid-generational advancements rather than mere cosmetic refinements. It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo (never one to follow the herd) follows a similar line of thinking with the Switch.

With all that taken into account, I reckon there are three distinct directions Nintendo could take with the Switch in future iterations. I'm going to call them: Switch Mini, Switch XL, and Switch Pro.

This is the most obvious and, I feel, the most useful refinement of the Switch. There's a strong case to be made for a significantly smaller device.

Nintendo's console is a brilliant handheld, but it's far from a perfect one. The main issue is one of portability. At 398g with the Joy-Cons attached, the Switch is quite a hefty beast. To place that in context, the New Nintendo 3DS is 253g while the PS Vita Slim is 219g.

It's also just plain big - 239 x 102 x 13.9mm versus 183.6 x 85.1 x 15mm for the aforementioned Vita. The Switch doesn't so much stretch the term 'pocket gaming' as it does pop the stitching to make room.

Of course, while those chunky screen bezels suggest there's ample room for shrinkage, there's an obvious issue with the Joy-Cons. We want the Switch to be smaller, but could we bear Nintendo's ingenious-but-awkward dual controllers to be any diddier?

As discussed above, Nintendo has form when it comes to making its handhelds smaller even it compromises usability somewhat. Look no further than the Game Boy Micro for a perfect example.

Another option - perhaps even a parrallel option to the Switch Mini - is to create an even larger device.

As I mentioned above, while the current Switch is a chunky beast, it's Joy-Con controllers are a little too small for their own good. There's a case to be made for a slightly larger Switch with a pair of controllers that are more comfortable to use for longer sessions.

Such a device could also have a larger display, which would make those impromptu on-device Mario Kart multiplayer sessions easier on the eye.

The idea of a Switch XL isn't as preposterous as it might seem. True, it would verge on the unusable as an outright handheld console. But as a home gaming system and as a portable home gaming system (if you catch my drift) it would be a big improvement.

Again, Nintendo has form on this front - check out the various XL variants of the already-hefty 3DS family.

The final prospect is for an elite-level Switch with a more premium form factor and significantly uprated internals. The kind of power that could provide boosted visuals (should developers choose to support them) and maybe even 1080p output in handheld mode.

There's already a well-established off-the-shelf chip that could supply this. The Nvidia Tegra X2 is a significantly more capable successor to the Nvidia Tegra X1 that ended up powering Nintendo's hybrid console. It's a good deal more powerful than the X1, and also significantly more energy efficient, so superior battery life would accompany any performance boost.

Crucially, the X2 could also run games designed for the X1, so there would be no issue with backwards compatibility.

The prospect of an enhanced Switch Pro isn't entirely out of the realms of possibility, either. Nintendo did something similar with the New Nintendo 3DS, which sported a more powerful CPU, a massively improved 3D display, and even additional controls.