Rumors have swirled about Nintendo’s next console for years, but some are more consequential than others. Recently, the company’s stock dropped as much as 8.8% after a report that the company has pushed back the launch of its Switch successor to 2025.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Nintendo told game publishers that its unannounced next-generation console has been pushed into the early months of 2025. According to VGC and other sources, the console was widely expected to launch in 2024, but the launch date slipped into next year for unknown reasons. The company’s stock eventually recovered to a 5.8% drop within the same day, which represents the biggest value loss for the company since October 2021.
Fans and industry observers have hotly anticipated the announcement of the presumed “Switch 2” for years now. Industry analysts like Serkan Toto have predicted that the Switch successor is likely to be iterative, meaning that it will likely be a hybrid portable/docked console with some “bells and whistles.” February’s recent Nintendo Direct brought a number of announcements, including Grounded and Pentiment coming to Switch, but Nintendo has yet to publicly acknowledge the existence of any Switch 2. Over its seven years of existence, the Switch has become one of the most successful game consoles of all time, selling 139 million systems and over 1 billion games.
