Nintendo has rather unceremoniously revealed that a “successor to the Nintendo Switch” is on the horizon, with a formal announcement coming “within this fiscal year”.
The information comes from a recent post to the official Nintendo X / Twitter corporate account, purportedly written by Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa. The message is short and sweet, explaining that the company “will make an announcement about the successor to [the] Nintendo Switch within the fiscal year” and that it has now “been over nine years” since confirmation of the existence of the original Nintendo Switch.
Interestingly, the post then reveals that a Nintendo Direct presentation will be held “this June” but quickly clarifies that it will focus exclusively on “the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024” and not mention the upcoming system in any way.
We’ve been following the latest rumors and leaks surrounding the upcoming Nintendo console, which we have tentatively been calling the 'Nintendo Switch 2', for years now, though there has been next to no official information regarding the system up to this point.
The original Nintendo Switch was first unveiled publicly on January 13 back in 2017 before launching on March 3 of that year. Given that the current Japanese fiscal year began on April 1 2024 and will run until March 31 2025, it doesn’t seem too unlikely that we might see that kind of timescale repeated with its successor in the build-up to release. Although purely speculation, this might mean that a reveal in January 2025 is on the cards.
We’re hopeful that the new console will be larger than the original Nintendo Switch and will feature some form of backwards compatibility with Nintendo Switch games and certain Nintendo Switch accessories like the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. There have also been some credible leaks regarding redesigned Joy-Con controllers, which will reportedly feature a new magnetic attachment mechanism.
While this all seems quite likely, we’ll still have to wait for that announcement in order to know for sure what’s in store.
