The Nintendo Switch 2 is unlikely to be unveiled this year, but an announcement is expected by March 2025, according to a new report that discusses how Nintendo, despite having reduced its annual profit forecast by 10% due to a downturn in Switch sales, intends to announce a successor to the Switch within the current fiscal year, which ends in March, as originally planned. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed the news during an online press conference, noting that the earnings revision was prompted by the Switch’s failure to meet original sales projections, with 4.7 million Switch consoles having been sold in the first half of the financial year vs. 6.8 million units in the same period a year earlier. The original Nintendo Switch console will be nearly 8 years old in March, having been released that same month in 2017.
Nintendo lowered its full-year sales forecast for the console, which is in its eighth year on the market, by 7% to 12.5 million units. That would be down 20% from actual Switch sales of 15.7 million units a year earlier. It also revised down its annual software sales forecast by 3% to 160 million units.
Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda said Nintendo shares could remain under pressure in the near term as announcement on the new console, a major catalyst for the stock, seemed unlikely by the end of the calendar year. “Making an announcement this year has gotten quite difficult … You would not want to divert attention to an upcoming console in the middle of the critical year-end shopping season,” Yasuda said.