Topline
Nintendo teased that an announcement on the highly anticipated successor to its Switch console will come later this fiscal year—the gaming giant’s first public hint at its next major gaming product after the Switch’s seven years on the market.
In this June 19, 2018, photo, visitors play a Nintendo Switch game at a showroom in Tokyo. (AP ... [+]
Key Facts
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa announced on X that the company will make an announcement “within this fiscal year,” which ends March 31, 2025.
The company also announced it would be holding one of its Nintendo Direct events this June—a periodic video announcement that highlights upcoming games and company news that regularly generate buzz about potential Switch follow-up announcements—but Furukawa cautioned “there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation.”
The announcement came as Nintendo released its fourth-quarter earnings report, showing that the company is projecting an operating profit of 400 billion yen for the year ending March 2025—which would amount to a roughly 24% drop from the fiscal year that just ended this past March.
Switch sales have started to decline but continue to trickle in, with 15.7 million units sold this past fiscal year—while Nintendo acknowledged this is a 12.6% year-on-year decrease, it suggests “sales are steady for a platform in its eight years after launch,” per the Nintendo earnings report.
It would be the first new Nintendo console since the Switch was first announced in March 2015 ahead of an eventual 2017 release, Furukawa noted in his statement.
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What We Don’t Know
As Nintendo has been tight-lipped about its potential Nintendo Switch successor, rumors have run rampant, with some reports earlier this year suggesting a 2024 release for the console was possible. But multiple gaming outlets reported in February Nintendo was now eyeing an early 2025 release—though there’s been no official confirmation of that release window.
Big Number
139 million. That’s how many units the Switch has sold in its lifetime, making it Nintendo’s highest selling home console and the third highest gaming platform of all time behind only the handheld Nintendo DS and the Playstation 2.
Key Background
The seven years between consoles marks a lengthy wait for Nintendo fans. The time between Nintendo’s prior home console, the Wii U, and the Switch was roughly five years, with the Wii U released in November 2012. The wait between the Wii U and its predecessor the Wii was approximately six years. But Nintendo has managed to lengthen the Switch’s life cycle with the release of updated hardware—in particular, the Switch OLED with an improved screen in 2021—and with late-stage blockbuster releases, mostly notably “The Legend of Zelda: The Tears of the Kingdom,” which has sold more than 20 million units since its 2023 release.
