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Everyone seems to know when the Switch’s successor is launching. Gamers, industry insiders, analysts…they’re all claiming to have the scoop on when Nintendo is bringing their Switch follow-up to the market, yet Nintendo remains quiet. Today brings us yet another organization claiming to know Nintendo’s plans, and this one is quite a big name.

Nikkei, the world’s largest financial newspaper, is piggybacking on a recent rumor about the Switch’s successor being bumped from its original late 2024 plans to an early 2025 release. Nikkei specifically says they’ve learned that the platform will see release March 2025 at the earliest, but doesn’t give any other details on how they came to find out this information.

As for the why the push to 2025 happened, Nikkei claims that Nintendo wants to give developers more time to create titles for the platform, and they also want to streamline sales of the hardware at launch. Nintendo wants to avoid the hardware shortage situation they saw with Switch, and they also want to ensure a strong launch lineup/launch window, which resulted in the shift to March 2025 at the earliest.

Nikkei also reached out to Nintendo for comment on the matter, and not surprisingly, Nintendo had “no particular comment” to share. Nintendo isn’t going to make a peep about their next piece of hardware until they’re good and ready, and it’s clear Nintendo hasn’t arrived at that moment yet.

[Nikkei]

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Comments (6)

styster

1M ago

Nintendo learned with the Switch that a strong launch lineup can make or break a system... I'm more than happy to wait if it means a strong first year for the next system!


cheesus 2

1M ago

I'm disappointed that the Seitch 2 reveal in March isn't going to happen anymore, but I'm willing to wait if that means we don't get another disastrous launch line up like the 3DS

Edited 1 time

ngamer01

1M ago

@styster

Unfortunately there was a time where Nintendo was loaded for a system launch only to lose control soon after. The last known case of a strong start completely ruined...Wii U.

So it's just not the games that can make and break a system. The system itself can also make or break itself at the market. We can only hope the Switch iteration or sequel is strong enough to be better than any update Valve can give to the Steam Deck (including Valve launching a stronger model than the current Deck).

Otherwise third parties won't invest in Nintendo and will support Steam Deck only along with PC and Microsoft and/or Sony.

Edited 2 times

joeshabadoo

1M ago

The software lineup sounds like it’s certainly going to be strong out of the gate. I hope that the rumors of the delay related to building up a healthy supply of units are also true, for the consumer’s sake.

Also let’s stop pretending that Nintendo needs to worry about the Steam deck. A fantastic device, but an enthusiast device it will always remain, not mass market

Edited 2 times

conangiga

1M ago

@ngamer01

Strong start? The Wii U?
You mean the console that got the fourth NSMB game as the big day one game? Only a few months after releasing the third game in the series?
The Wii U never had a strong start. Never. Ubisoft released a exclusive but every other third party game was a port that was already available elsewhere for months and for less money.
You either have some killer first party games at launch and beyond or you're having a death wish. 3DS was the same. Basically no first party launch game at all aside some minor stuff and only the OoT remaster on the horizon almost spelled doom for the handheld.


ngamer01

1M ago

@conangiga

The only things Wii U only didn't have at the start was Mario Kart 8, Splatoon 1, and Smash 4 which was due to Nintendo wanting a AAA start by not hogging the system launches as usual. Nintendo had scenarios in the past where they had first party games, but little/no AAA support at launch and scenarios where they had AAA games, but little first party support at launch.

What's the common thing to both scenarios? Both scenarios were hampered by weak system hardware. In the last gen, Nintendo just barely turned the 3DS around in time, but gave up on the Wii U after it fell off the cliff. Nintendo introduced a NEW 3DS as a means to give a little oomph to game devs who were hamstrung by the weak 3DS hardware, but very few devs made use of it.

TL;DR: 3rd parties use any excuse to not support Nintendo. Nintendo needs capable hardware to reduce the risk. They won't stop that mindset, but they can reduce it. Otherwise we'll still see scenarios where Nintendo gets shafted in some form.

Edited 3 times