Fans are looking forward to a successor to the switch have to wait a little longer. Nintendo confirmed in its most recent earnings call that no Switch 2 or Switch Pro is expected in the coming months. 2024 could finally be the year we see which new console the company is working on, but in the meantime gamers will have to put up with the current, aging hardware.
The Week of the Games: Return to Hyrule
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa told investors during a phone call on Tuesday that no new Switch or remastered versions such as the Switch Lite and OLED model have been included in the 2023 financial outlook. Bloomberg reports. While that doesn’t preclude the company from surprisingly launching something or starting teasing later in the year, it certainly makes an imminent launch of a more powerful Switch console unlikely.
This will be the third year in a row Now that gamers have been waiting for Nintendo to announce a more powerful handheld hybrid. Other companies are not waiting for the famous publisher to take the next step either. Valve launched its own Steam Deck PC gaming handheld and Asus is now gearing up to compete with the ROG Ally, an expensive device that nonetheless promises powerful specs. Then again, none of them have The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The news comes amid a slowdown in overall Switch sales as the hardware enters its seventh year. The company said it sold 18 million units last year, down nearly a quarter from 2021 and below its 21 million target. Furukawa said the company’s goal in the meantime is to sell more switches to people who already own them. “We try to not just install one system in each house, but several in each house or even one for each person,” he said in the last profit statement.
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One way to do this is by releasing special edition switches to commemorate big launches such as Pokemon scarlet And Violet and now Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo said it also aims to continue increasing sales of older games. Above all, Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe sold another 2 million copies last year, Kante Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu And Eevee from the list of Switch’s 10 best-selling games. A big Mario Day Sale and the billion-dollar box office success of the Mario movie must have helped.
While Tears of the Kingdom is just around the corner, Pikmin 4 is currently Nintendo’s only major announced release for the second half of the year. The only other planned drops are so far Scarlet fever And Violet‘S area zero expansion and more Mario Kart 8 deluxe DLC. Metroid Prime 4 is still TBD and Nintendo hasn’t teased other big blockbusters in the pipeline, although I’m sure they are there. A new Super Mario Finally play, maybe? Almost six years have passed since the last one.
Or maybe Nintendo is saving it for when it’s finally ready to unveil the post-Switch console.
