Definitely, nothing can make more sense than this approach. Nintendo shouldn't be worrying about getting people upgrading to the next switch, heck OLED is just a screen upgrade and it's selling like water in the desert.

So just keep releasing cross Gen games, let the better performance on the next system be the selling point (Unless it's impossible to scale down to a enjoyable version on OG switch, but considering how Nintendo take some time to take its hardware to the fullest, I find very unlikely to get games to blow things in graphical terms right in the beginning).

I think discussions like this are largely elementary.

Nintendo's already made the decision about the Switch successor and it's probably been made 1, even 2 years ago at this point. I doubt they are looking at sales trends week to week or month to month even right now and factoring that into the equation all that much. 

Also again, not sure why this has to be pointed out like 50 times, but Nintendo themselves had no intention of letting the Game Boy product cycle go on that long. They were committed to replace the Game Boy by 1995/96 with the successor (Project: Atlantis) ... the company making the system just could not give Nintendo what they promised (on battery life + performance + cost + size), so Nintendo was unable to release it.

It's probably a large part of the reason Virtual Boy got rushed out onto the market (Atlantis being behind schedule and N64 also failing to meet Yamauchi's holiday 1995 target date).

Yep as long as they don't screw it up the successor could very well become Nintendo's fastest selling system ever in its first couple years due to how strong the Switch brand is. I think it's likely they do what Sony did in the first couple years and have a mixture of cross-gen stuff to take advantage of the install base of the old console and exclusives to push the new hardware before fully committing to it in the third year.

Software sales only dropped 9%, it's so miniscule that it's not even worth mentioning. Nintendo is still more than profitable with the Switch right now with the Switch having their most profitable install base in their history. Nintendo could legitametely just support the current Switch for years on without a successor and still remain profitable just off software sales, releasing a successor will bring more risk than anything right now. Switch will have the greatest and most profitable install base for any console in history, it's far from a guarantee the successor will do the same. 

Also, there's very little to worry about Nintendo's software pipeline for the next Switch. I think it's likely that Switch 2 will have some sort of backwards compatibility with the OG Switch so it's likely that the hardware between the two will be similiar enough for OG Switch games in development to make their way over to Switch 2. Two of Nintendo's first and biggest Switch launch window games were BOTW & MK8, both Wii U ports. Nintendo could definetely switch development over to Switch 2, they've done it with many late gen games before.

I don't think anything will happen. switch is still selling gang busters.The switch will have to retail for at least 399$ if it has modern tech in it. i'm sure nintendo is not in rush till they see it slow down.

It depends on whether you view the Switch as a Nintendo handheld, or a home console. With handhelds, they have pretty much been able to get away with anything they want and still succeed. Not so much with consoles. So does Switch benefit from the former because it's basically a handheld that can be docked? Or does it suffer because it can be docked, and thus, have to adhere to the same sorts of societal expectations that their home consoles had to? I guess we'll see.

To me it makes no sense to release it next year because of a few factors.

COVID delayed things
Supply issues with the war
Inflation stupid high right now (at least in Australia)


I run a hobby shop and sales are way down as people here are paying anywhere between $1000 to $3000 more a month in mortgage repayments then they did 12 month ago due to inflation causing interest rates to go up about 4% with more to come. All that spending cash they had for fun is no longer spending cash for fun.

yea it makes no sense and will only kill switch sales which they probably make bank on now. also the audience doesn't really care about graphics like the audience for Microsoft and sony.  

Pretty much this. Whenever the Switch 2 comes out is the result of a decision made long in advance. They’re not looking at it month to month for a random drop, there are hardware development and manufacturing plans that need to be made, software development cycles to consider. If that’s all rolling for a specific date, it’ll have to be years in advance, they’re not going to tell all their partners “Not this year, maybe next,” if they’ve got all the hardware deals in place and software developed for said hardware. “Oh yeah, also, it’s going to be on different hardware with a different interface. But since we’re not sure what it’s going to be yet, none of our dev kits are to be taken as accurate.”

Only 9% yeah but they are forecasting a bigger 15% drop for this fiscal year which is notable so the Switch is clearly in the decline phase now and will make Nintendo less and less money each year going forward. Surely it makes more sense for Nintendo to release the successor next year before the Switch declines too much that it starts harming the company and release some cross-gen titles for the first 1-2 years to take advantage of the install base instead of damaging the company through continuing declines in revenue and profit?