Nintendo’s president said there was no change to its plans to announce Switch 2 by the end of March 2025 as the company reported a sharp decline in Switch hardware sales.
In its latest financial report, Nintendo said that Switch sales fell by 31% year-on-year in the three months up to September 2024. It said the steep drop was partly because 2023 sales had been strong on the back of the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. But it was still forced to lower its sales and profit forecasts for its current financial year.
As Switch sales continue to slow during its eighth year on the market, impatient investors are hungry for news of its successor, to say nothing of fans. But it seems as though Nintendo is intent on making everyone wait.
Reuters reported that Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa told an online press conference that there was “no change” to the company’s stated plan to announce the successor console before the end of its current financial year in March 2025.
As an analyst told Reuters, that means an announcement in 2024 is highly unlikely. “Making an announcement this year has gotten quite difficult […] You would not want to divert attention to an upcoming console in the middle of the critical year-end shopping season,” said Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda.
So, if Nintendo teases any more announcements before the end of the year, remember that it’s much more likely to be a weird alarm clock or music app than the next console.