Topic: Switch 2 Release Date Predictions

The holiday argument has been made so many times it's considered a meme over on famiboards.

There are various counter-arguments, but, for one, Nintendo is not such a desperately poor company that they would mess up their long term plans for a little
extra profit this Autumn. If they wait for a September 2025 release it will almost certainly be for different reasons.

I would argue the main reason to think Nintendo won't announce this year is simply that they haven't yet. It could still theoretically be this week or easily next week, but the Alarmo clock is ticking for the predicted pre-November-5th-financial-meeting announcement.

The argument for an announcement this year is that production has already started and there is little benefit to stockpile units for 8+ months. So it seems absurd for it to not release in H1. And if it's releasing H1 next year then an announcement early next year doesn't give them a lot of space to build momentum through to release. It's possible but it's a narrow window

The argument for next year is that narrow window or not it's technically possible. And more to the point, for every day that passes there are less days left in 2024

@skywake The way I'm looking at it is time has run out for a 2024 reveal and if they're waiting until 2025 then they'd wait until after DKC Returns HD has released which puts it as late January reveal at the earliest (that's why I think February reveal).

As for September release, I don't see them releasing in July/August but earlier feels too narrow of a gap between reveal and release. Doing what they did with Alarmo for Switch 2 (e.g. release in May exclusively to NSO subscribers on My Nintendo store meanwhile general retailers get it in September) to get it out earlier feels very risky.

Well, I don't have any arguments, but I do hope they announce this year. Just so that they give my heart another shot of excitement that it definitely can't take.

No joke, seeing that part made me laugh

@Grumblevolcano
Switch was announced on the 20th of October so I'm not sure how time has already run out for 2024. This is more or less the exact same time of the year they did it last time. Running out? Sure. Time tends to do that. But already out? Nope

I do agree that a launch in H1 would be probably be too short a gap between announcement and release if it was to announce next year. That's sound logic. But that's precisely why I don't think it's announcing next year.

Again, I don't think they would have started production already if the intent is a release in H2. And it looks like they have so looks like it's not H2. And if it's not H2 then a 2025 announcement seems way too tight. Therefore what's left is an announcement this year. When this year? Some time before the investor Q&A. November 5th. This week or next

From everything heard and seen from leaks and chatter, for sure the Next Switch is underway. And I have mentioned before here in more detail that I personally have reason to believe that the next system was in the hands of devs at NoA in 2022. If it’s not announced this year then I think it certainly was planned to have been by this point

@skywake An announcement this week would mean not giving Jamboree space (Nintendo did give Color Splash space before announcing Switch 1) meanwhile I don't see Nintendo announcing it on Halloween week. Then you've got Brothership the following week.

To me it seems like Nintendo's going to take advantage of people inevitably leaking NSO playtest gameplay to distract away from Switch 2 and then the earnings report is such that all Nintendo needs to say to shareholders is repeating what was said in May.

I expect the reveal in January. My guess is Sept 2025 release with 3D Mario near the Mario Bros 40th Anniversary with Kirby, Fire Emblem 4 Remake, and Mario Baseball padding out the first half of the year.

@nitrolink I agree. I don't think Nintendo will want to compromise any potentially Winter Holiday Switch1 sales by the announcement of a successor pre-Christmas. I'd expect Jan/Feb announce and then 4-6 months before release.

@Grumblevolcano
Color Splash was the week before the Switch announcement and they released Mario Party All Stars on the day of the announcement. Brother ship is the 7th, it doesn't clash with an announcement before their investor Q&A

@skywake Color Splash's general release was only a week before Switch reveal for Japan. The rest of the world was 2 weeks before and Nintendo also accidentally allowed digital preorders early access to Color Splash in September. As for 3DS games like Mario Party Star Rush launching close to Switch announcement, Switch was only treated as a Wii U replacement (it was the market that decided it was also a 3DS replacement, not Nintendo) so the timing doesn't really matter.

Releases are simultaneous worldwide nowadays, I don't see 1 week being enough space and anyway Thursday is coming to an end. As for my point about next week, I just don't see Nintendo announcing new hardware on Halloween week. Then the week after that is Brothership.

@Grumblevolcano
Be honest. Your position here is essentially that it can't overlap with anything at all because you don't want to be disappointed by hoping for an earlier release. If it wasn't the month of Brothership it'd be Halloween or Black Friday or Alarmo or a port of Donkey Kong Country Returns

And anything that overlapped last time? Well, Wii U games didn't count because the Wii U was dead. 3DS games didn't count because Switch didn't upgrade the 3DS. Any excuse we can think of to dismiss

..... you could just say you don't believe it will announce this year and have nothing to back that up. You just aren't willing to play chicken with the calendar

I do hope we hear but this November about Switch 2 or something as this is getting closer and closer to 2025 March if that is the date of ETA.

Speaking from a US-centric point of view, the November 5th presidential election is going to erase everyone's brain and own the news, so around here next week versus the week after may as well be a month apart.

That aside, next week seems like a reasonable reveal time to me. If it was early in the week, Halloween wouldn't be a conflict and it would still be reasonably before Brothership.

A November reveal would feel odd to me because why wait until after the financial meeting, although I wouldn't 100% rule it out simply because Nintendo has surprised me several times lately.

@FishyS
I think the "not immediately after the investors meeting" bit is important but probably overplayed. It's less of a "it can't happen then" and more of a "if you were picking a date on the calendar" thing

Basically it makes the first two weeks of November have the added weight of "we could've announced it in late October and avoided a lot of those tricky questions and investor uncertainty". And the same will be true with the first couple of weeks in February. Doesn't mean they can't, just means there's a barrier that makes it less likely

Basically we're playing a game of probabilities here. Where there are weeks less likely than others and I would argue a gradient that makes sooner more probable than later given production has started. And I guess world events, product releases and so on. But it's less a case of this week or that can't happen, excluding the passage of time ruling out days in the past. It's more of a we aggregate the probabilities and these dates are more likely than those

ATM I think next week has the highest probability. Which is different from saying it's more likely than not we'll have an announcement by the end of next week

@Grumblevolcano @skywake I enjoyed reading that little debate between you both. I just wish it had went on for longer.

For what it is worth, I am with Skywake. I reckon next week is the week that all will be revealed.

@OorWullie nah, we ain't getting anything till jan-feb

Actually... You know, many are awaiting the reveal to find out about Switch 2's backward compatibility, but the Switch reveal didn't get into details like that. I wonder how long we'll have to wait after the reveal for the backward compatibility details.😆

@WoomyNNYes It'll definitely have BC. They are numerous reasons, but the main one is the focus Nintendo has placed on their account system. They've reiterated over and over again to investors that the account system is their way for a smooth transition. Which is basically as close as they can get to confirming it without actually confirming it.