Nintendo to announce Switch successor before the end of this financial year

Nintendo wants to make a statement on the successor to its Switch games console before the end of the current financial year. This was announced by Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa on Tuesday. The financial year ends in March 2025 [] so there should be initial information on the new Nintendo console by then.

This is the first time that Nintendo has publicly commented on a Switch successor. However, media reports have been talking specifically about a Switch 2 for a few years now, which will retain the extremely popular hybrid concept of the Nintendo console. The first developer versions are said to have already been demonstrated at Gamescom last summer.

Production delayed

In February, Bloomberg reported delays in the production of the Switch 2. According to the report, the Switch 2, originally planned for 2024, would instead be released "in March 2025 at the earliest", the business magazine reported. A new Nintendo console is eagerly awaited not only by fans, but also by the industry as a whole. Sales figures for the Switch, which was released in 2017, have recently been weak.

Nevertheless, the Switch is a huge success story overall – its various versions have sold over 130 million units to date. Following the original launch of the Switch, Nintendo launched a purely mobile Lite version and an OLED version with an improved display. However, the hardware, which is important for displaying graphics, was not significantly revised.

This is a major problem that the Switch has today: Its Nvidia Tegra X1 chip is almost ten years old and offers significantly less performance than many cell phones. In practice, current games often run at less than 30 FPS, even with a high porting effort and greatly reduced graphics details. Many fans have therefore been hoping for a more powerful model for years. The chances are good that they will get it next year at the latest.

(dahe)