No Switch 2 under the tree
For game console manufacturers, the holiday season is a good time to launch new products. But the successor to the Switch console, the third best-selling console in the history of video games behind Sony’s PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo DS, will not be under consumers’ Christmas trees. This new console is long overdue.
Video games are exploding in Belgium: more than 700 million euros in turnover
Last August, GamesIndustry journalist and editor Chris Dring said he had spoken with developers, who were told by Nintendo not to expect this new console until April 2025.A lot of people I’ve talked to are hoping it’ll come out in April or May, pretty early in the year.“, he adds. But officially, Nintendo only revealed last May that an announcement would be made on this subject by the end of next March. “It is difficult to determine the exact timetable.” of Nintendo regarding the successor to the Switch, commented Takeshi Koyama in a recent note from Mizuho Securities. Several analysts also expect a launch between March and June 2025, which would allow Nintendo to raise the bar for the 2025/26 financial year which will begin on April 1.
The video game giantfocuses on sales of its current Switch console in 2024″and especially during the traditional lucrative end-of-year holiday season, and news of the next console “could therefore arrive from mid-January”added Takeshi Koyama. But Nintendo’s risky bet turned out to be destructive for the company. Because the famous Switch is not selling.
Grateful for sales of consoles (-31% year-on-year) and games (-27.6%) “lower than initial expectations” in the first half (April-September), the Kyoto-based firm this week lowered its Switch sales target for the entire financial year (to 12.5 million units, compared to 13.5 million until then ). The company predicts even more difficult months than expected until the release of the successor to its console, while still expecting an annual net profit of 300 billion yen (1.8 billion euros), which would be a drop of 39% over one year.
When the Atari company buried its video games in a landfill, out of shame for not having managed to sell them
Other outputs to compensate
Released in March 2017 and sold more than 146 million copies, according to the latest figures from Nintendo, the Japanese flagship console will soon celebrate its eighth birthday, far exceeding in longevity the brand’s previous consoles. While waiting for its successor, Nintendo hopes to slow down the inevitable decline in its sales with regular releases of new games from its historic series, such as “The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom”, “Super Mario Party Jamboree” in recent weeks, or “Mario&Luigi: The Brotherhood Epic,” which is due to go on sale Thursday.
