Follow-up to Nintendo's Switch probably not coming until 2025

According to unconfirmed information, Nintendo is not planning to launch a successor to its Switch console until 2025. This is according to several independent media reports. They are based on talks that Nintendo is said to have held with game developers in recent weeks.

Bloomberg, Eurogamer and VGC, among others, have learned that Nintendo developers have been informed that the console, previously expected for 2024, has been delayed. Some sources give the first quarter of 2025 as the new date, while Bloomberg says the device will be released "in March 2025 at the earliest". The console, often referred to as the "Switch 2", would therefore miss the upcoming Christmas sales.

Switch hardware is outdated

A successor to the Switch is urgently awaited in the gaming industry, as the current device has been on the market for almost seven years. This makes it increasingly difficult to adapt current games that are to be released on multiple platforms. And even particularly lucrative exclusive titles are usually released with the market launch of a new console. The Switch's hardware is so outdated that even emulators on modern gaming handhelds such as the Steam Deck or the ROG Ally from Asus can display Switch games at higher frame rates than the original device.

Only one update of the Switch since 2017

The first version of the Switch was released in March 2017. By comparison, the Playstation 5 was launched in November 2020 and is now described by Sony as a device "in the later phase of its life cycle". According to rumors, Sony is planning a Playstation 5 Pro, which is supposed to be significantly faster and could therefore keep up with modern gaming PCs. At Nintendo, there was only one update in the form of an OLED display, which was at the end of 2021. The computing units remained unchanged.

When asked by Bloomberg, Nintendo did not want to comment on the reports. However, the company had previously announced that it would comment on its strategy when announcing its next quarterly figures in March 2024.

Source: www.heise.de