Nintendo has made quite the audacious statement when it comes to the Switch, which is now entering its eight year.
As shared by GoNintendo, on one of the slides of this financial quarter’s business presentation, they state:
“We will continue to release new titles and content for Nintendo Switch without being bound by the traditional concept of the platform cycle.”
It’s certainly an audacious statement from Nintendo. In terms of the technology, the Switch is running on a mobile gaming CPU that’s well past its sell by date. It’s also obsolete in terms of lacking support for newer upscaling technology, such as DLSS, that would allow it to credibly run newer games, and compete with more high end platforms.
But perhaps Nintendo has good reason to be confident. They shared many interesting insights on their slides, that suggest that the Switch really does still have a few years left to it.
For example, Nintendo found that their biggest video game franchises, such as The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, and Super Smash Bros, are becoming bigger titles, with exponentially higher sales than the titles that came before them on earlier platforms.
So what was only 11.75 million units for Animal Crossing: Wild World on the Nintendo DS has now become 43.38 million units sold for Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch.
Furthermore, Nintendo has found that their most popular games on the Switch are maturing into long term sellers. The staggeringly high sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on its first year, for example, are only a little over one fifteenth of the total number of sales it has had since.
Most Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sales occurred far after its launch, and the same is true of titles like Ring Fit Adventure, Splatoon 2, and even the supposedly obsolete New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe.
Nintendo can also tout the success of third party companies on the Switch, and the increased popularity of their first party franchises outside of Japan.
The company does cite the Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Super Nintendo Land theme park attractions as helping them become more visible, but that clearly does not explain the success of their non-Mario properties.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa had previously dismissed all rumors about the Switch 2, so it seems that they may be serious about moving forward with just the Switch for another year.
But, we want to add one thing here. It’s possible that Nintendo is bluffing. They aren’t necessarily lying, but their wording makes it sound like Nintendo isn’t planning to release new hardware – when in fact they might be doing that, while still selling the Switch while it remains profitable.
Of course, Nintendo, like other companies, can’t lie or mislead their own investors. But companies can and will use these little rhetorical tricks, to keep rumors at bay and protect their plans from being outed too early. We may not have to wait that long to find out what Nintendo’s real plans are for next generation hardware.
