We already know that Nintendo is planning to announce the much-anticipated successor to its incredibly popular Switch console before the end of its current financial year on March 31st, 2025, but if new claims from GamesIndustry.biz’s Head of Games, Christopher Dring, are anything to go by we can almost be certain that we won’t actually get our hands on the device until after that threshold.
Citing developers presumably already working with Nintendo and with knowledge on the subject, Dring opened hot in a recent episode of the outlet’s podcast by affirming his belief that the “Switch 2” won’t be launching in Nintendo’s current financial year.
“No developer I’ve spoken to expects it to be launching in the financial year,” Dring said. “In fact, they’ve been told not to expect it in the financial year. A bunch of people I spoke to hope it’s out in April or May time, still early next year, not late.
“I don’t think any of us wants a late launch for Switch 2 because, A; we all want a new Nintendo console, everyone gets very excited for it, and B; we don’t want that crunch of, like, GTA 6 and Switch and all that kind of stuff on top of each other.”
Not exactly the most surprising or hard-to-assume prospect, of course, given we still know very little about the console at an official level, but the idea that developers aren’t expecting we’ll see the new console on shelves for at least another six months does help to align expectations a bit.
Download the latest GI Microcast for our take on Krafton acquiring Tango Gameworks, financial results for Sony, Take-Two and more, plus Chris Dring's new segment: What do the numbers mean?https://t.co/wgO3GxC2p3
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The most recent word out of Nintendo’s camp came as the company assured it wouldn’t have supply issues at launch and that it’d combat scalpers simply by producing enough consoles, with company president Shuntaro Furukawa saying, “Last year and the year before, we were unable to produce sufficient quantities of Nintendo Switch hardware due to a shortage of semiconductor components, but this situation has now been resolved.”
“At present, we do not believe that the shortage of components will have a significant impact on the production of the successor model.”
