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super_etecoon said:

A couple things: it looks like VGC is less optimistic about a Switch 2 releasing this year than many YouTube personalities. That doesn't surprise me. This bunch here is a bit more educated, particularly when it comes to hardware sales, of course. Secondly, there is a strong group who believe 2025 or later (possibly never) will be the release timing of the Switch successor. I don't think this is out of the realm of possibility, particularly if there is a delay or Nintendo is indeed taking the Apple route.

Finally, the vast number of people believe that 2024 is the launch year of the Switch 2 with half believing it will launch in the first half of the year, just as the Switch did, and the other half expecting it in the second half of the year, as is more traditional for console releases. Personally I think the holiday timing makes the most sense as it is a tried and true launch period. Announcing a system to release in Q1 of a given year will certainly tank sales in the prior Q4. I suppose it's possible to announce in Q1 for a release in Q2, but I still think it's a bad look. The Switch was announced for a Q1 launch well in advance and it wasn't like the announcement was going to cause the WiiU to falter any more than it already was.

I just don't think Nintendo is in a do or die period this year or even early next year. There is plenty of software already in the pipeline that will keep folks interested in 2023 and though sales are starting to lag, I wouldn't say they are in a rapid decline. That may come, especially if Nintendo decides not to pursue aggressive bundles or price cuts, but at this point I feel like we're in a typical 4th year pattern, hardly a time for panic, but certainly a time for action.

Yeah I think you're right.

I mean obviously the timing wouldn't make sense to launch a successor early in the year as that would cut off holiday 2023 sales for Switch. No reason whatsoever for Nintendo to do that to themselves. That's a no brainer. As you said it was fine when Switch did it because WiiU sales were already long since dead.

Q1 2024 announcement and Q2 2024 launch is the earliest we'll see. I expect Switch sales will indeed be slowing down a good bit in 2024 so a holiday Switch 2 launch would lead to low HW numbers for Nintendo in 2024. They could always do HW price cuts, SW price cuts, plus launch GB and GBA on NSO, and have a last small round of fan-desired games in 2024 to keep interest in Switch fairly strong until a holiday Switch 2 launch.

Essentially, if Nintendo doesn't want one fairly bad year of HW sales, they'll launch probably in late Spring '24, if they are fine just gobbling up insane SW profits while letting HW sales become lackluster and perhaps actually taking some steps to increase sales, they should have no problem launching Holiday '24. 

There is certainly no rush for a successor to launch. Plenty of big games people are still waiting/hoping for (Zelda, Prime remake, DK, Prime 4, Pikmin, 2D Mario, and hopefully more), and I doubt there's anyone that doesn't have a big backlog of Switch games to play through. Honestly I might put off getting the successor for a couple years just to give me time to get through my Switch games. For gamers Holiday '24 is just fine.