If you’re hoping to get a Nintendo Switch 2 or a Nintendo Switch Pro this year, we’ve got bad news. According to a new report, it doesn’t appear that Nintendo has any plans to release new Switch hardware, at least not between now and April 2023.
Nintendo Switch sales are slowing, and Nintendo can’t do much about it. Between market saturation and supply chain issues, Nintendo is simply selling far fewer adapters than it used to be. One possible solution is for Nintendo to produce a new console, perhaps something powerful enough to compete directly with the PS5 or Xbox Series X. But that doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.
Information comes from Bloomberg Journalist Takashi Mochizuki on his Twitter account. He cites a paywall-protected article from Nikkei, a prestigious Asian financial publication. According to Mochizuki, Nikki spoke with the president of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa.
The post then confirmed that Nintendo has no plans for new hardware between now and the end of the fiscal year in March 2023. However, it’s not clear if this is Nikkei’s comment or a paraphrased quote from Furukawa.
Nikki: There will be no new Nintendo hardware this fiscal year, which ends in March 2023. It’s not immediately clear if this part of the article was from Nikkei’s own reporting or what the Nintendo boss, who interviewed Nikkei for the story, said. https://t.co/HJVqk9KbefAugust 4, 2022
It is important to consider this information in light of Nintendo’s overall financial resources. Nikki AsiaNikkei’s English-language publication reports that Nintendo’s operating profit has fallen a full 15% since last year, largely due to slowing Switch console sales. (Nintendo’s net profit actually rose due to the relative value of the yen overseas, but that’s another story.) For reference, Nintendo sold 4.45 million Switches in the second quarter of 2021, compared to 3.43 million Switches in the second quarter of 2022.
According to Nintendo, the lack of semiconductors is the main reason behind this slowdown. However, the Nikkei noted that Nintendo sales surged earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic. Attentive readers may remember that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has become The Your insurance game. It is quite possible that most of the people who want to buy a Switch have already bought a Switch.
This is where a new console might come in handy, especially one that would force existing Switch owners to buy new hardware. While the Nintendo Switch Lite and Nintendo Switch OLED are situationally advantageous, they don’t offer a different software library or better performance than the base model Switch.
If Nintendo is still struggling to get a semiconductor for the switches of the current model, it stands to reason that the company wouldn’t want to release a new console right away. But even if we don’t get a new Switch between now and March, it’s only fair to wonder how long we’ll have to wait next. In 2021, Nintendo commented that the Switch was in the middle of its intended lifespan, suggesting that an all-new system could be as far from 2025.
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