Everyone get out the dowel rods and Ouija boards.
Get out your dowel rods and Ouija boards everyone. It’s Switch 2 prediction season!
Now, we should reiterate that the only official announcement from Nintendo so far is that they will unveil their next console after the Nintendo Switch before the end of this fiscal year. That will be March 31, 2025, and came directly from the President of Nintendo Co. Ltd., Shuntaro Furukawa.
Furukawa didn’t call it Switch 2 either, and neither did anyone working for Nintendo Communications. That’s sort of the nickname the press and fans have used for the console, partly out of wishful thinking that’s what it would be called, and partly because it’s easier to call it that.
Over the course of the week, news broke that Nintendo had told its sources that it was unlikely to release the Switch this fiscal year. GameIndustry.Biz editor Christopher Dring stated that Nintendo should not expect it.
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We’ve reported on this rumor, but as some fans have pointed out, Dring isn’t exactly known as a source for Nintendo-related rumors, as opposed to sales figures for the UK games industry. In fact, his track record when it comes to correct and incorrect Nintendo-related predictions is mixed at best.
Tom Phillips, EIC at Eurogamer, has since confirmed Dring’s rumor, claiming he heard the same thing from his sources. We don’t know if these are the same sources, and how credible those sources really are. But whether the rumors are true or not, the news is out.
Now, Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki shared new insights from those looking to predict Nintendo’s actions from across the pond. He tweeted the following:
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“Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda says Nintendo’s next generation will be released in the first half of next year.
http://GamesIndustry.biz had previously said it would not happen this fiscal year. That means the launch would be sometime between April and June 2025?”
Mochizuki then revealed in a follow-up tweet that Yasuda had also predicted that Nintendo’s console would launch at a price of $499 or less.
Mochizuki tried to connect Yasuda’s prediction to the rumors from GamesIndustr.Biz and Eurogamer, but we can interpret it differently. Toyo Securities’ job in the industry is to make smart guesses, and sometimes they can get it wrong.
But the value of these predictions actually lies more in giving investors information that helps them make better investments. Yasuda’s prediction can be seen as a signal to investors that they shouldn’t expect Nintendo’s business to pick up significantly before the second half of 2025. By the way, if you want to know how serious this company is, it was a representative of Toyo Securities who asked Hiroki Totoki, CFO/Chairman of Sony and PlayStation, to explain what the company was planning to do with Bungie.
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In fact, even more games are planned for the Switch this year, such as The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdomand the heavyweight Metroid Prime 4: Beyond With the next console still scheduled to be released in 2025, it’s plausible that Nintendo won’t launch its next console anytime soon. And of course, panicking about possible market fluctuations won’t cause them to rush a release that had to be organized months in advance. However, they could speed up things like presentations and announcements for the console, and we think this rumor still has some traction.
