We now have reason to believe that the Switch 2 has started manufacturing.
This information first spread around thanks to Nintendo Prime, but he cites research made by users on Famiboards. We will cite our proper sources for this information below.
A few days ago, Prime made a video about the latest shipping data made publicly available from a factory making the Switch 2. Famiboards users LiC and darthdiablo revealed that a significantly large amount of components were brought to the factory, owned by one of Nintendo’s manufacturing partners, Hosiden.
Hosiden has a system that allows outsiders to pay for this data, but they will get it months late. So, this increase in components being shipped to the factory actually happened last August. Without getting too deep into these details, they saw numbers much larger than the last datamine, to the degree that we can now anticipate that Nintendo was preparing for manufacture of the consoles.
And then yesterday, Prime made a new video looking at data that Nintendo themselves provided in their recent financial report. Famiboards user fwd-bwd pointed out that Nintendo increased their spending on “work in progress” inventory, from 77,000,000 yen in March 2024, to 7,030,000,000 yen, nearly ten times as much, in September 2024.
So, even if we don’t put too much weight on notions of Nintendo copying their schedule from eight years ago, we can easily conclude that Nintendo already started manufacturing Switch 2 consoles.
It’s not impossible that some of this data reflects a new batch of the original Switch consoles being manufactured. However, we already know that they are planning to make a new console, so it’s extremely unlikely that they decided to ramp up manufacturing their current console before the new one.
We should also make it clear that the data from Hosiden is really only a small peek through a barely open window. Nintendo obviously has far more partners and factories making their consoles than Hosiden’s one factory that happens to have an out for public disclosure.
It’s even possible that other factories already started making the Switch 2 in part or in full before Hosiden got to do it, precisely because Nintendo knows that it could leak from this one. And really, we know that Nintendo is more than a Republic serial villain.
Did any leakers and dataminers really believe that Nintendo would reveal the Switch 2 if there remained the slightest chance that they could affect that outcome? Some fans would claim that Nintendo has been trolling their fans who have been demanding they reveal the console before the year ends, but it seems they already made their decisions, and they have chosen to keep them close to their chest.
It’s certainly concerning that Nintendo had to report lower Switch console sales, and lowered their sales forecasts. For now, the choice not to reveal the console yet came down to their bigger plans to prepare a large inventory of stock before reveal, to make sure the launch isn’t hurt by scalpers. We hope Nintendo does well in the uncertain near future. It’s not just the gamers that are hoping for it, but the games industry as well.
