For the first time in nearly a decade, Nintendo has formally confirmed it is working on new hardware—the successor to the Switch. The official statement on the next system comes as part of the company’s recent May 2024 financial briefing, where it updated sales numbers for Switch hardware and software.
As global sales for the current Nintendo Switch family of systems soar past 141 million units worldwide, Nintendo has now formally set a timer for when it will talk about what’s over the horizon. Before the end of March 2025, the world will be introduced to the Nintendo Switch’s successor.
Sharp-shooting for first
As exciting as the future is, respect should not go unpaid to the existing lineup of Nintendo hardware. As of March 31, 2024, 141.32 million Switch units have been sold, with over 1 billion units of software to boot.
The Nintendo Switch continues its race to the top, with Nintendo forecasting that within the next fiscal year (April 1, 2024 – March 31, 2025) the hybrid should sell around 13 million units. If it achieves this, it will surpass both the Nintendo DS (2nd) and PlayStation 2 (1st) and become the best-selling game system in all history.
During the previous fiscal year which just ended (FY24,) the Switch family sold just shy of 16 million units worldwide. This is a downturn from the almost 18 million units sold in the same prior period; clearly, sales are slowing down.
However, considering March 2024 marked seven year since the Switch initially launched, the fact that the console is still selling in the tens of millions per year shows a healthy downturn, rather than a plummet to the bottom. Not only are units still moving off shelves, but owners are continuing to play as the report confirmed that over 123 million systems were active within the April 2023-March 2024 period.
Setting things up nicely
Sticking to its tried-and-true history of announcing these out of left field (while also in a very matter-of-fact way,) Nintendo shared a short, yet powerful official message from current President, Shuntaro Furukawa, via the company’s X page. His statement confirms that the successor to the Nintendo Switch is set to be revealed within less than a calendar year (before March 31, 2025.)
In addition to that mic drop moment, the same statement from Mr. Furukawa also confirmed that Nintendo will indeed be premiering a Nintendo Direct this June; around the same time it would’ve traditionally held an E3 presentation.
Furukawa even made sure to temper expectations by straight-up saying that the Switch successor is not going to be present during that presentation.
Nintendo fans may recall during the leadup to the Switch’s reveal and release during the period of 2014-2016, Nintendo gave soft, extremely vague mentions of it here and there, but did not uncover any hard details (not even its real name) until the full reveal that took place in October 2016. At that time, the system was less than six months out of the gate.
Putting aside speculation for now, the hard truth is that Nintendo is poised to stun the industry once more. The Switch is the healthiest console its ever had (and one of the healthiest platforms in all of gaming,) and its userbase seems ripe for smoothly transitioning. Better yet, Furukawa did confirm the one thing that so many people were wondering: this will indeed be a direct successor to the hybrid we’ve had.
In response to a question asking about what kind of system the Switch’s successor is during the investor’s briefing, Furukawa confirmed that “Switch next model is the appropriate way to describe it.”
With that in mind, this seems setup to be the most direct transition from one (home) console to another that Nintendo has had since moving from the NES to SNES.
Timing is everything
The gaming industry is in an interesting situation right now. Sony and Microsoft launched their 9th-gen systems during the heat of the pandemic, and while they’ve performed alright, much of their would-be userbase is still on their predecessors. Adding to that is the fact that most studios continue to release across the current and past generation of hardware, despite the current-gen now being at its middle point.
Arguably an even more eyebrow raising point is that Sony even had to recently admit that the PS5, which has led the 9th-gen charge, has already began to see its sales plateauing.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has been making big, confusing moves, with layoffs following several massive acquisitions in recent years.
In other words, Nintendo seems the most put-together out of the big three right now. While the other platforms are trying to find their footing, the Switch is aging gracefully and is setting up for its successor to, hopefully, simply take the baton and keep running full steam ahead.
