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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - How long do you think Nintendo will support Switch?

Shtinamin_ said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

Expect Switch games to be mentioned in Nintendo Directs in both 2025 and 2026 at a minimum. 

They may support it even longer than that though, depending on how they plan to market Nintendo Online.  One strategy would be to gradually use bundles and price cuts for the Switch to get more people to sign up for Nintendo Online.  That would make it easier for people to sign up for this subscription service.  Not sure if they will take this approach or not though.

At any rate, don't expect the Switch to go away any time soon.  Successful consoles hardly ever go away quickly.  Sony tried to kill the PS4 in 2020 and yet new PS4s are still being manufactured and sold.  The Switch will be even harder to kill than the PS4, and that is assuming Nintendo wants to end it's life prematurely (which they probably don't).

↓ They do, they said they want to end it in March 31 2025.

Shtinamin_ said:

Nintendo has already stated how long they will support the Nintendo Switch for.
President Shuntaro Furuwaka stated that we are "still working on software for the Switch for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025"
March 31, 2025 will be the last day any Nintendo published games will be released on the Switch.

Nintendo Online Support, online multiplayer support, eShop support, and Hardware manufacturing are a different thing.
I think that the successor will have all of these but specifically declare the Switch support for these will be discontinued respectively in April 1, 2030; April 1 2030; April 1, 2029 & April 1, 2027.
3DS eShop closed 12 years after its release and online services close 13 years after its release.
Furuwaka stated that the Switch was at its halfway point in its lifecycle by its 5th year, which is 10 years of shelf life. 

I've read articles with this quote.  The context seems to be affirming that Switch will definitely get support up to March 31, 2025.  It does not say that support will end immediately afterward.  It's saying that support will continue at least that far.

https://www.techpowerup.com/314367/nintendo-will-support-switch-until-march-2025
The wider gaming community is eager to find out what is in store for the rumored "Switch 2," but Furukawa remained guarded about future prospects. He revealed that Nintendo will continue to "support" the existing model over the fiscal year starting April 2024 to March 2025 (FY24): "I can't talk about the specific topic...We are still working on Nintendo Switch software for the fiscal year ending March 2025. The momentum will be sustained to continue to expand the Switch business. In the fiscal year ending March 2024, we will keep up the Zelda momentum and move into the holiday selling season. In terms of hardware, we will maximize demand not only for new purchases, but also for second units and replacements."

The context is that they are asking when Switch 2 will release.  He's simply not giving clues to its release date by saying that Switch will definitely get support until March 31, 2025.  Again, this doesn't mean that support will end after that.  It's more of an answer to keep people from knowing Switch 2's release date.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 10 January 2024

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They should just release an app on switch for streaming from a cloud service the switch 2 games.
Maybe is just easier to keep a service like that running than keep making content for an older platform.

Can full content focus on the new hardware, and dont sacrifice anything due to crossgen titles.
Let 140M+ people buy games from the novel platform from the start.



When it comes to Nintendo making games for Switch, I could see Nintendo releasing games for it til 2027. They definitely won't want to stop supporting Switch 1 with games even after Switch 2 releases since they'd want to keep the Switch 1 around as a safety net in case Switch 2 flops, just like how the 3DS was a safety net for the Switch in case the Switch flopped. Plus I'm sure Nintendo would still want to take advantage of the 140M+ install base the Switch 1 has for software sales since the Switch 2 will have a limited install base to profit off of initially, once the Switch 2 install base becomes big enough then they'd focus all their resources on Switch 2.

Despite how successful the Switch was when launched, Nintendo still kept supporting the 3DS with games for another 2 years after it launched until 2019. I expect something similiar with the Switch 1, maybe for a year longer cause of longer development cycles and just cause of how huge and much more profitable the Switch 1 is compared to the 3DS which will incentivize more releases on Switch.

When it comes to the actual discontinuation of the Switch, I expect the OG Switch to actually be phased out relatively more quickly in 2025. I think Nintendo will do this because it's always been feeling like Nintendo will want to phase out the standard model since it likely wouldn't offer anything that the Switch 2 or Switch Oled wouldn't offer and Nintendo would rather force people to just buy a Switch 2 by only offering the more expensive Oled model which will likely be close enough to Switch 2 in price to just force people to get a Switch 2, but they'd still offer the Oled maybe in limited quantities if the consumer just really wants a Switch 1, especially if the Switch 2 goes back to an LCD display instead of Oled so they could offer some type of Oled Switch.

I expect the Switch Lite to be offered until the very end mainly cause I don't think Nintendo will offer the Switch 2 Lite at launch of the Switch 2, so Nintendo would want to keep the Switch Lite around as a cheaper handheld only alternative for several years until the Switch 2 Lite launches, kinda like how the New 2DS XL was the final more affordable 3DS Model that was the last to be discontinued, so I expect the Switch 1 brand in general to discontinue by 2028.