Nintendo to announce next Switch game console by March 2025 as original sputters

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Nintendo Co. said it will announce a successor to its seven-year-old Switch game console, after forecasting a major profit decline for the current fiscal year.

President Shuntaro Furukawa took to X (formerly Twitter) to say there will be an announcement on the next hardware platform by March, shortly after his company said it expects operating income to fall to 400 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in the year to March 2025 on 1.35 trillion yen in net sales. Both figures fell well shy of average analyst estimates and underscored the challenge for the company that’s still reliant on ageing hardware.

Nintendo told suppliers and software partners earlier this year that it was delaying the launch of the next-generation console until March 2025 or later, scrapping an initial plan to release it by this year’s end, Bloomberg News reported. That leaves it to contest the key holiday season against newer and more powerful consoles from Sony Group Corp. and Microsoft Corp. The creator of the Super Mario Bros. games is also likely to hold back major releases of its most popular franchises to help boost initial sales of the next machine.

For the March quarter, Nintendo earned an operating profit of 64.5 billion yen, short of the average analyst estimate of 74.7 billion yen. The company met expectations with 15.7 million Switch sales in the year to March, though it sees a big drop for the current period, forecasting 13.5 million units. Its guidance on software sales also points to a decline, from 200 million units to 165 million units.

This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct…

— 任天堂株式会社（企業広報・IR） (@NintendoCoLtd) May 7, 2024

The Switch’s versatility and family-friendly ethos, developed under the oversight of creator and former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, have helped it ratchet up cumulative sales of more than 140 million units. It is one of the company’s most successful pieces of hardware. But the firm’s history offers a cautionary tale: A decade earlier, the Wii U failed to carry on the success of the Wii, another of Nintendo’s biggest hits.

Nintendo has been pushing its Nintendo Switch Online subscription service to entice new customers to buy the 2017 gadget and cultivate a broad user base for the next console. The 134-year-old company is also turning to its nascent motion picture business for new revenue.

After the blockbuster success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie last year, Nintendo is developing a live-action film based on The Legend of Zelda, to be co-produced by game creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Marvel Studios founder Avi Arad and distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. The release date is yet to be announced.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow