There’s a huge new rumor about the Switch 2 that seems to have created controversy among fans, which one could take as proof that there is some credibility behind it.
This information comes from Nintendo Prime, but we will focus mainly on the rumor itself for the purposes of talking about it.
Nintendo Prime found a rumor posted in Weibo, that he machine translated, but couldn’t verify with a fluent Chinese language speaker. As such, we are also subject to what the translation says, and so there’s room for misinterpretation in the details.
But the main talking points, that don’t seem like they can be misinterpreted, is that the Switch 2 will be officially announced in January 2025, and it will be released in March 2025. We don’t know how well this aligns with theories that Nintendo’s Switch 2 release schedule is going on as planned, or if they sped up or slowed down that schedule.
But if you think about the business side of this, Nintendo would have motivation to schedule the release of the Switch 2 before the end of this financial year. While they can’t predict early sales figures, it would be safe to assume that there would be a huge amount of consoles that will be sold at launch, and they can tout that at the end of March 2025.
The machine translated rumor goes on to mention that there are already shipments in various regions of about 650,000 units. They also point out for comparison that the original Switch shipped 2,740,000 units. It looks like this source is alluding to the number of Switch consoles that were made in the past few months, and not the number of Switch units made when it launched in 2017. Again, without the benefit of a native speaker, we are making smart guesses here.
Finally, the rumor ends with claims that Switch 2 components have already been made in the hundreds of thousands since September. Likewise, the long rumored T239 SOC that will power the Switch 2 has been shipped in large quantities.
We don’t have a frame of reference for if this source is credible at all, but the claims they make do make sense. Nintendo can very easily debunk this rumor and surprise us with a reveal trailer they could show us at any time, but clearly, we haven’t reported or found any such thing yet.
This rumor seems to have created controversy among Nintendo fans, as Nintendo Prime argued that Famiboards unfairly banned one of their users for posting this information. You can watch Nintendo Prime’s video to learn more about this issue. What we will point out is that by deciding to ban that user, Famiboards may have unwittingly lent credibility to the rumor.
But we certainly won’t claim that we’re sure this rumor is correct. Like everyone else, we’re eager to get news, especially now that we know the PlayStation 5 Pro’s launch didn’t lead to an increase in PlayStation 5 hardware spending year-on-year. It certainly wasn’t enough to raise total hardware sales for the whole industry.
Those sales numbers may match or exceed Sony’s own goals, and it may make the fans happy. But the industry needs bigger growth to get out of the current slump, that’s led to this drastic wave of layoffs. We already know there are some developers who are hoping for the Switch 2’s success, because they had no such expectations for Sony’s platform.
As to whether Nintendo can live up to those expectations, we certainly hope so, but it remains to be seen.
