super_etecoon said:
The Switch era is most definitely not the WiiU era, though. Announcing that (or even rumoring that) there is a successor to the WiiU on its way would result in almost no sales lost, as the WiiU made most of its sales in its first year and died a slow death the rest of the time. Unveiling or hinting at a Switch successor (outside the typical PR stuff) in a few months would kill Switch sales for the holiday and could cost them as many as 5-7 million units. These are delicate times for Nintendo and they will be doing their best to be on their best behavior. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't start getting any real hints from Nintendo about the Switch 2 until after March 31, 2023. |
Exactly. I'm sure there will be rumors for a while before an actual announcement but I would bet Nintendo doesn't actually announce the successor until early 2024, letting Switch have one last strong holiday season, letting Switch 2 have a mid-year or holiday 2024 launch.
Nintendo can feast off insane software sales and still quite good HW sales the next 12+ months before telling people to start getting ready for the successor. Gamers should be focused on Pikmin 4, Metroid Prime 4, Zelda TotK, Fire Emblem, etc, next year, along with whatever other games they still have up their sleeves like the rumored Prime remake, possibly DK, gotta assume 2D Mario, and probably more. No reason to be looking to the next gen anytime soon.
I think perfect situation for Nintendo would be to load up 2023 with a huge SW year (assuming they are working on finishing up a bunch of Switch's final round of games) with just monster SW sales for the year, saving a couple AA games for early 2024 release, then Jan/Feb 2024 announce Switch 2 for like a May launch. That gives people time to get ready, while not leaving too much time for HW sales to drop off, and letting SW still have a few months to sell huge numbers before Nintendo and the gaming media switch over to the Switch 2 launch and Switch sunsets.
Last edited by Slownenberg - on 29 December 2022
