As of Thursday, July 11, the Switch is officially the longest-lasting console in Nintendo’s history. As noted by Video Games Chronicle, the Switch has been on the market for 2,687 days without being replaced by a new console, which is one day longer than the span between the launch of the NES in 1983 and the launch of the SNES in 1990.
When Nintendo started hinting at a Switch 2 announcement last summer, I pointed out that the Japanese company had never waited more than seven years between home console launches. Well, the seventh anniversary of the Switch came and went in March. Four months later, we’ve still yet to see the follow-up to the Nintendo Switch.
Here’s the full timeline of Nintendo home consoles so far, courtesy of VGC:
- Color TV-Game (June 1, 1977) – Famicom (July 15, 1983): 2235 days
- Famicom (July 15, 1983) – Super Famicom (Nov 21, 1990): 2686 days
- Super Famicom (Nov 21, 1990) – Nintendo 64 (June 23, 1996): 2041 days
- Nintendo 64 (June 23, 1996) – Nintendo GameCube (Sep 14, 2001): 1909 days
- Nintendo GameCube (Sep 14, 2001) – Wii (Nov 19, 2006): 1892 days
- Wii (Nov 19, 2006) – Wii U (Nov 18, 2012): 2191 days
- Wii U (Nov 18, 2012) – Nintendo Switch (March 3, 2017): 1566 days
- Nintendo Switch (March 3, 2017) – Now (July 11, 2024): 2687 days
The two that stand out are actually the two most recent consoles: the Wii U and the Switch. As Nintendo fans probably know, the Wii U was all but dead on arrival. The Wii U GamePad was a confusing, unwieldy gimmick, first-party Wii U games were few and far between, and the name was just terrible. It’s no wonder Nintendo rushed to get the Switch out.
Meanwhile, the Switch has a good chance to go down as the best-selling video game console of all time. The hybrid console felt like the full vision of the Wii U, putting the GamePad’s screen on the console itself and filling the Nintendo eShop with great games.
While this record-breaking wait for the next console has been tough, it’s nearly over. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said in May that the company plans to make “an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year.” Nintendo’s fiscal year ends on March 31, 2025, so a reveal is coming within the next nine months.
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