Nintendo is much more patient with the release of its highly acclaimed Nintendo Switch 2 than consumers. The Japanese gaming monolith reportedly plans to hold back the console until April or May of next year, after the end of the company’s fiscal year. That’s a few months longer than the company originally suggested, but two months feels like an eternity to those anticipating Nintendo’s first major hardware release in over seven years.
In May, Nintendo finally confirmed that the Nintendo Switch 2 was happening. The Japanese gaming giant said it wanted to launch the console this fiscal year. However, everything indicated that the company would wait until March – the end of the fiscal year – before unveiling its new hardware.
Now comes the bad news. GamesIndustry.biz boss Chris Dring said on The outlet’s latest podcast (above VGC) that developers do not expect the console to launch in March. The industry insider said it is not in Nintendo’s game plan to announce a console in its financial reports and then launch it in the same year.
“I’m saying now that the console won’t come out until this fiscal year,” Dring said in the podcast transcribed by Gizmodo. “No developer I’ve spoken to expects it to come out in the fiscal year. They’ve been told not to expect it in the fiscal year.”
Dring further claimed that insiders hope the console will be released in April or May next year, but either way it will likely be early 2025 rather than later. In a interviewPublisher Take-Two CEO Strauss-Zelnick stressed that Grand Theft Auto 6 will hit stores in the second half of 2025. Nintendo probably doesn’t want to compete with this gaming titan, although it’s still unclear whether the Switch sequel will get the next GTA on release day.
Nintendo promised its shareholders that they plan to produce enough Switch 2 so that the black marketeers do not end up with all the inventory. Maybe this April or May date was always the plan, and Nintendo plans to ramp up production before we get to spring 2025. Nintendo would like to have a game that spans multiple consoles on the launch date, as it has done previously with Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game was available at launch for both Wii U and Nintendo Switch. Nintendo’s bridge game could Metroid Prime 4: Beyond with an expected release date of 2025, but we will have to wait and see if the title can launch in time for the new console.
In the first quarter Results report Earlier this month, Nintendo announced that it has sold 143.42 million Nintendo Switch consoles in its entire history. The company hopes to sell another 13.5 million units this year, even if sales continue to decline year-on-year through 2025. It is becoming increasingly difficult to the original switch when so many consumers are willing to break through chain link fences and storm a factory to get their hands on Nintendo’s next portable console.
