Furukawa: Announcing Switch/NX So Early Was A "Special Case"

[CaptainExplosion]

Soundwave said:

Since this has previously been a topic of discussion here in various threads, I thought I would bring this point up from the last Nintendo investor Q&A

Question: Nintendo Switch was announced under the development codename “NX” in March 2015,
and then the official name was announced in October 2016 prior to its launch in March
2017. Looking back, do you consider this a success in terms of hardware marketing, given
there was a space of about two years between the initial announcement and launch? Do
you think a similar interval between the announcement and launch of a next-generation
platform will be necessary?

Furukawa: Looking back at the release of information leading up to the Nintendo Switch launch, we
announced the “NX” development codename in March 2015 during a joint announcement
with DeNA Co., Ltd. regarding our business and capital alliance (as it related to joint
development of smart-device game applications and its operation, and also the core
system development centered around Nintendo Account). When we announced our entry
into the mobile business at that time, we needed to let people know that Nintendo would
be continuing to focus on the dedicated video game platform business as our core
business. So, I believe that the timing of the Nintendo Switch announcement was a special
case.

We will provide information about hardware and software at the appropriate time for
each product and strive to reach a wide range of consumers.

So basically what I said ... they only announced NX so early (2015) because they were making an announcement for smart phone games and wanted to reassure investors that they were not getting out of the console business. 

As such it was a special case to announce NX that early and (by logical extension) does not mean Nintendo has to announce the Switch 2 on the same time line. Likely if Switch 2 is a 2024 product, they can just announce it in 2024 and launch 4-5 months later if they want (that was the actual length of the real Switch marketing cycle last time).  

It was a tumultuous time for Nintendo thanks to the botching of the Wii U, so yeah, it was a special case when they announced the NX early. Thankfully, as far as I know, they won't need to do the same for the Switch's successor.