Nintendo Quarterly Sales Update: Switch at 139.36m shipped

[RolStoppable]

Dulfite said:

Those thinking it's just a few months delay, I disagree. Nintendo has traditionally released a new generation every 6 years (the average I think was like 5.5 years before the Switch). The Switch didnt explode in sales until around 2020, which means the tech for Switch 2 was already decided at that point (2.5-3.5 years after Switch 1 launch). Every month the Switch is delayed makes the tech inside of it older and therefore less impressive come launch. By the time it comes out, Switch 1 will be 8 years old, which is absolutely insane.

I want Switch 2 to be as impressive as possible and every month it's delayed, let alone 2 years, that becomes less likely. It's not like they could adjust after 2020 or 2021 to beef up the tech on the Switch 2.

It doesn't work like this. Significant adjustments to a console's chipset can still be made a year before its release. A general example of this is the amount of RAM which has an influence on the quality and variety of textures inside any given level of a game. A more Switch-specific example is how much the chipset needs to be underclocked in portable mode to accomplish sufficient battery life. The Switch itself saw an internal revision in 2019, two years after its launch; looks exactly the same as the 2017 model on the outside, but inside it's ~50% longer battery life because the same chipset was made more efficient than before. There are also new things like DLSS which improve over time, so a 2025 version of it will obviously be more impressive than a 2023 version.

The point is that a hypothetical Switch 2 launched in 2023 wouldn't be the same one as a Switch 2 launched in 2025. The more important question is if you want to play games on it that didn't have their development rushed and if you want such games at a steady release pace.