Nintendo threw Switch players a long-awaited bone by announcing its end of year financial resultsconfirming that the console’s successor will be revealed before April 2025. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said that a next-generation Nintendo Switch console will be announced “within this fiscal year” – giving the Japanese gaming giant a deadline of 31 March 2025. This lines up perfectly with the current supposed release of Q1 2025.
Regarding the announcement of the Switch 2 console, Furukawa said:
We will make an announcement about the successor to the Nintendo Switch this fiscal year. It has been over nine years since we announced the existence of the Nintendo Switch in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct in June about the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the second half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be no mention of the successor of the Nintendo Switch during this presentation.
Meanwhile, Nintendo’s forecast signals an anticipated slowdown in Switch console sales, projecting it to sell 13.5 million Switch consoles this year, compared to the 15.7 million units sold in the previous fiscal year. Net profit over the next year is also expected to fall 39%, along with a projected 19% drop in revenue.
Switch console sales have dropped substantially since their peak in 2021, while the OLED model – the most recent version of the nearly decade-old console – has seen a small 1.1% increase in sales year over year. However, the platform’s user numbers remain healthy, with Nintendo stating that the 123 million annual players registered between April 2023 and March 2024 were “the highest seen since the launch of the Nintendo Switch.”
Nintendo, however, has not given up on the current generation of Switch consoles. In your prediction the company said it will “try to not just put one system in each home, but several in each home, or even one for each person.”