With a busy holiday season full of new Switch games approaching, Nintendo isn’t likely to start talking about the Switch 2 anytime soon, but it’s difficult not to read between the lines when the company talks about future plans. For instance, in an interview with Nikkei this week, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa announced that the company will continue to support the Switch through the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2024. He also confirmed that new titles are in the works for the Switch for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.
Here’s what Furukawa said when asked about the lifecycle of the Switch:
“We are still working on software for the Switch for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025,” he said (as translated by VGC). “In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, we hope to sustain the momentum of Zelda and the [Super Mario Bros] movie, with focus on the holiday sales season. As for hardware, we will maximize not only new demand for the hardware, but also for those buying second consoles and replacements.”
This isn’t exactly news. It wouldn’t make much sense for Nintendo to suddenly stop supporting the Switch while continuing to release new games for the console. But the language Furukawa used also doesn’t conflict with rumors about the Switch 2 launching in fall 2024.
As it stands, Nintendo’s schedule features release dates for Switch games up through Princess Peach: Showtime!, which launches on March 22, 2024 (just before the fiscal year ends). Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is slated to launch in the summer of 2024, while a remastered Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is coming out sometime in 2024. The arrival of those remasters wouldn’t interfere with Nintendo launching a new console before the end of the year.
With Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Detective Pikachu Returns, Super Mario RPG, and a few new Switch OLED and Switch Lite SKUs coming out later this year, we don’t expect any official news about the Switch 2 until next year at the very earliest. That said, the pieces are falling into place for Nintendo to start making the transition near the end of its current fiscal year.
