When will the Switch Successor launch (2023 version)

[Soundwave]

Wman1996 said:

DarthMetalliCube said:

I'm actually going to go out on a limb and say they're gonna stretch this thing out for a decade, so early 2027. Why cut off its life short while it's got such a massive library with solid 2nd/3rd party/indie support and is still selling relatively well?

Though I do think between now and then (maybe mid-holiday 2025) a Switch Pro could be released.

Stretching the console out for 10 years with a Pro version way closer to the release of a new system sounds like a very Nintendo thing to do. It sounds a little like the Game Boy, since a lot of people consider the Color to be a Pro version. Except the release between the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance was about 11.5 years, not 10.

I'm still banking on March 2024, with November 2024 nearly as likely, and March 2025 not unlikely. 

Nintendo didn't even really plan the Game Boy to go that way. 

What had happened was Yamauchi (then president) basically wanted to axe the existing Game Boy as it had declining sales by the mid-90s. 

They were working on a 32-bit full color successor called codename Atlantis, Nintendo actually showed a slide of this at GDC a while ago:

https://gameboy.fandom.com/wiki/Project_Atlantis

The thing was Atlantis turned out too expensive, bulky, and hard to manufacture. Nintendo released the Virtual Boy instead in 1995, which of course flopped but the fact that they would rush that out to market tells you how badly Nintendo wanted something new to offset flagging Game Boy sales of the time. 

Then Pokemon came out of nowhere in fall 1996 and became a huge hit in Japan, and to capitalize on that Yamauchi basically ordered the development of the Game Boy Color. 

But really that was a very unlikely series of events. If the Atlantis hadn't been so expensive to mass produce, likely that would have at some point launched in 1995 probably instead of the Virtual Boy and game history may well be quite different.