Now is Nintendo's opportunity to release a powerful home console for a very low price. An RTX 4050 console for $250 (like a newer Series S). Release a new Switch at the same time so you can play portable and at home. Get 200 million console sales of the two products together.

I think there would have been more leaks if it was coming by Q1 2024. So that leads me to think it will be either holiday 2024, or Q1 2025. I wouldn't be shocked if they ride this thing out until holiday 2025 though.

There is absolutely zero chance that we're seeing a new Switch in May of this year. There would have been far more info leaked by this point. There has been almost no real information about the next Nintendo system, which means it is not in the hands of developers yet, which means it is not launching in 4 months. 

If they even bothered to do that, they would need to share a library. After the SNES, Nintendo's only home console that matched or exceeded sales expectations was the Wii. 

Nintendo has made plenty of risky or foolish decisions in the past, and making another home console would be one of those. And I highly doubt 200 million would happen, whether two SKUs at launch or two separate platforms. 

Switch probably won't sell above 160 million, and it might not even hit 150 million or above. The Switch successor, whether hybrid or with a home console option, will probably not sell above 115 million. There's a good chance it stops at 100 million or a little under.

And if Nintendo outright abandons the hybrid out of the box model, I see this happening.

Next home console: 34-38 million

Next handheld: 68-72 million

Um Switch is at 120+ closing out 2022 with Nintendo clearly expecting they can sell just as much in 2023 (and why wouldn’t they with all the Zelda hype and surely a new Mario at some point this year with the movie creating hype there)? Switch will be knocking at or past 140m at this point next year, there is 0% chance it’s not hitting 150, no new model required. Very slim chance it doesn’t beat PS2 as well, they’d have to release the successor in q1 2024 for that to not happen, and like I already said no way they’re doing that.

But yes, abandoning hybrid would be stupid for next Gen, but I give it an extremely low chance that actually happens. 

I love how folks see Nintendo's success and still feel that it is a failed product.  Yeah, let's follow in Microsoft's shoes, that seems to be doing gangbusters for them in the marketplace against Sony.  Nintendo always works to find their niche in the gaming landscape, and while they definitely notch up a few failures, their successes more than make up for their blunders.  Ironically, the thing Nintendo, a company known for reinventing the wheel, needs to do this time around is just do the same thing...better.

-More Power

-More Storage

-Better or Comparable Battery Life

-Better Online

-Better Eshop

-Better Control Sticks

-Better D-Pad

And, of course, backwards compatibility, at least on the digital storefront side of things.

Dropping this here for everyone forgetting just one year ago Nintendo was still saying switch was still in the middle of its life cycle. Successor is not coming before late 2025 at the very earliest folks.

https://www.techtimes.com/amp/articles/272051/20220219/nintendo-switch-still-midpoint-life-cycle-shuntaro-furukawa.htm

The Playstation 2 sold from 1999-2013, a 14 year lifespan.  Half way through its cycle is 2007, a year after the Playstation 3's launch. 

The Switch will continue to sell after the release of the Switch 2, whether as a heavily discounted console or as a more dedicated handheld side of Nintendo's strategy.

But just because Nintendo has told us something is in the middle, doesn't make it so.  And the middle, like let's say of an orange, is quite a bit, so it kind of depends on what you mean by middle if you consider the rind the beginning and end.  Marketspeak is marketspeak and corporate PR shouldn't be held up as gospel.  You may be correct, but I think sales are a better metric to use for predictions.  That's also why I think half of YouTube creators had lost their minds when in 2020 and 2021 so many were calling for the successor to release in 2022 or 2023. It's like these folks don't even bother to visit VGC or look at the data themselves to notice the jaw dropping figures Nintendo was putting down in 2020 and 2021, and even 2022 ended up being a banner year historically speaking for the Switch.

@HyrulianScrolls

I agree with @super_etecoon on the lifespan interpretation. While it's true that Nintendo saying the Switch was in the middle of its lifespan in 2021 could mean a successor is a long way off, their statement is too vague. And middle does not mean 50 percent, at least not entirely. The Switch 2 could release at any point in 2024 and Nintendo's statement is still true. The Switch will almost surely stay in production a bare minimum of a year after its successor launches. It will probably even be more like 3-5 years.
The Switch 2 could launch in Q3/Q4 2023, and the middle of life comment would still be true.
A piece of hardware's lifespan is almost always longer than the time from its launch to its successor's launch. The Wii U is one of the few exceptions. It was discontinued on January 31, 2017. That's a little over a month before Switch launched. The GameCube also had a pretty short lifespan. Not as short as the Wii U, but it nevertheless was discontinued in February 2007. (about 3 months after the launch of the Wii).

Saw a news story today that Nintendo is planning on actually increasing production of the Switch this year as chip shortage problems are alleviating.

If they think they can sell more systems (perhaps another year close to 20m) then hopefully they have a bunch of games coming this year to back up that belief (ie 2D Mario, Star Fox?, Prime 4, Prime remake, DK, Z:WW/TP HD, etc). I don't see them needing to increase production unless they've got a lot of stuff in the software pipeline that is close to ready and maybe price cuts on older games as well. Hell, with chip shortages not a problem anymore, presumably that means Switch cost of production is dropping, and they are perhaps actually planning a HW price cut as well.

Anyway, this news is interesting and makes one think Nintendo is perhaps hoping to wait until 2025 to launch a successor, while keeping Switch HW sales solid and SW sales monstrous.