Enough, in the immediate future, to leave investors hungry. The prospect of the announcement of the new Switch had heightened expectations and caused Nintendo’s share price to rise by 12% over the last six months according to “leaks” on the internet.
“The fundamental problem was that everything he showed in his video had already leaked days or even weeks before,” Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games in Tokyo, told AFP.
“Manufacturers in China had shown the design, colors, button layout and even some new features like the method of attaching the controllers” via magnets, he observes.
“People may have said to themselves: ‘this is just what I expected’,” says Krysta Yang, host of the specialist podcast Kit&Krysta.
A new Mario Kart?
The stakes are massive for Nintendo: the new machine must take over from the Switch. Released in March 2017, this hybrid console, playable both on the go and connected to a television, has become a huge success.
It had sold 146 million copies at the end of September 2024: it is the third most popular console in the history of video games behind Sony’s PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo DS. Nintendo estimates that it has sold 1.3 billion games running on Switch.
But sales have waned over the years. While waiting for a successor to its aging machine, the Japanese giant saw its net profit plummet by 60% year-on-year in the first half of its staggered 2024/2025 financial year.
If the Kyoto-based group seeks to diversify by opening amusement parks and financing films featuring “Super Mario”, it “still generates around 91% of its income thanks to its Switch”, reminds AFP Darang Candra, analyst at Niko Partners.
The game offering will be decisive: the trailer for the new console seems to show a new version of the Mario Kart series. The previous installment for the Switch, “Mario Kart 8”, sold some 64 million copies.
15 million units sold maximum?
Due to a later release, “the Switch 2 may not exceed the sales of 15 million units recorded by the Switch in its first calendar year,” warns Nathan Naidu, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.
“Players are certainly not blown away as they were by the revelation represented by the first Switch, but I think the demand will be very high, at least in the first year,” tempers Serkan Toto.
“Simply making a bigger and better version of the original console” may be enough because “there’s not really any pressure from gamers for Nintendo to reinvent the wheel,” he believes.
In Akihabara, a Tokyo district known for its game shops, “gamers” were enthusiastic on Friday.
“They obviously listened to the fans on what needs to be improved,” comments Camden Voysey, a 21-year-old Australian tourist, referring to wider controllers, easier to handle for players with large hands.
“They’ve made a lot of improvements to the ergonomics of the controllers and the size of the screen. I’m really looking forward to playing my old Switch games in a higher resolution,” says Daniel Nguyen, a 34-year-old Canadian.
A point that is debated: Nintendo affirmed in November that games running on the Switch would be compatible with its new console. However, a part “may not be supported or fully compatible with the Switch 2”, the group corrected Thursday, without further details.
