Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Magician
They revised their forecast to increase projection. Switch will sell 15.5 (edit: had wrong number, not sure where I got 16.9 from) million past year, and reach just over 141m by March 2024.

Yes, 100% sure Switch 2 is releasing this year. For further evidence, look no further than the president's statements, and lack of statements

"Switch will be our main business HEADING INTO 2024". Not "throughout all of 2024"

And unlike every other year when we hear, "no new hardware this fiscal year", that statement was conspicuously absent this time. Wonder why 😉

But ya, even with Switch 2 dampening Switch sales, it'll crack 150m by March 2025. At which point it can waltz blindfolded over the finish line. It hasn't even received a price drop yet, and will sell for years into the Switch 2 lifespan. Once we have a $99 Lite and $199 base model on shelves over a holiday season, it's gonna go on a tear doing massive damage.

Switch will cross 160m by the end of its run, and should crack the record by end of next year.

edit: It's also worth noting that, at 1.2 billion software sales, Switch may top the combined software sales of Wii and DS, which is 1.5 billion. If so that would be even more impressive, imo.

If you have Amazon Prime you can get ArmorX Pro for $41.99 instead of $70.

It attaches to your Xbox Series controller to add rear buttons and gyro aiming, which can work for any game since it maps to right stick. Not as good as true mouse gyro but it's what XIM Nexus does. Except Nexus has smart translators that unscramble the curve mapped to analog to transform it into a 1:1 like mouse, so it FEELS as good if not better than mouse gyro in many games.

But this ALSO comes with an app to adjust the curve of the analog. Not as robust as Nexus app but, for $42 I'd say you're getting more than your money's worth.

It also let's the gyro work NATIVELY on Switch and PC, so you can use an Xbox Series controller for Splatoon with true mouse gyro just like the Switch controllers. That's awesome

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B91WQK8B?psc=1&smid=A2PAZV6RV...

Here's a robust review

@Magician I'm leaning towards March 2025 given Nintendo's comments.

I'm leaning towards late 2024 given their comments. They basically only said the very start of fiscal year 2024 will still be Switch 1. It certainly doesn't seem like they want to announce anything particularly soon either way.

I don't see why they would announce it too far in advance. I mean hell, momentum is still really strong, give it a 4-6 month build up.

If they do what Sony did with the PS4 for instance, and start talking PS5 over a year out, sales fell off a cliff and thats a generous way of describing it. From the great momentum of 2018 and 2019 to a million or two per quarter.

@Haruki_NLI
Exactly.

June announcement. Fall release (Sept?), possibly November.

90 days lead time is plenty. We already understand the concept. Early adopters pay attention 24/7 and by the time holidays are over, it'll have been out for months with word of mouth spreading

trying to do some XP grinding in kasual online for mortal kombat 1 with people i know from a facebook group.

but some other person is being stubborn and annoying me where theyre not standing still where they dont understand that you get XP points more from doing combos along with full health bar and doing a brutality. Ive been doing that since last month or so.

taking turns winning a match then the other person takes their turn yada yada. thats how XP is rained much quicker

@Rambler Interesting that it wasn't actually discontinued until January 2013. So that's another nine months in production after the official sales figures ended, which was before the PS4 launched. I suppose it's possible it could have sold another 3 million in that time combined with remaining stock in the following years, but does seem a bit unlikely.

@JaxonH That's how I'd do it.

Announce in the Summer launch it September like the Lite and OLED get the early adopters in, build up supply for the holidays and into 2025 while cutting the price of the Switch for the first time ever over the holidays to both clear through and run at the PS2.

Nintendo has stated they will overcome the chalenges of a generational transition with unique proposition

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-says-it-wil...

Nintendo switch sucessor could be revealed in march

https://gamerant.com/rumor-nintendo-switch-2-reveal-march-2024/

The March rumour is kind of contingent on the February direct rumours. If we get a direct next week and it is a partner only direct so doesn't say anything about new Nintendo games this year, that will definitely be evidence for the idea that they will announce Switch 2 sooner rather than later. If on the other hand we get a full direct then a) the potential leakers were wrong so why would we trust the March date and b) that will fill in the schedule for a few months so Switch 2 announcement could easily be later.

Regardless, I'm sure there will be a ton more claims about Switch 2 timelines after the next week direct does or doesn't happen.

@FishyS
I think you're right but I think there's potentially room for it being a bit fuzzier than that. For example if they have a February Direct that's not explicitly a partner direct but it's clear it's mostly just "clearing the decks"? For example here's a Metroid Prime 2 remastered shadow drop, here's some NSO stuff, here's some more detail on Peach etc. Even if they drop something entirely new but light, like a new Rhythm Heaven for Switch. I think that still opens up space for a Switch 2 reveal in March

But if they start going all "we're doing Wind Waker HD this year" or "first look at Metroid Prime 4" then.... I think we would need to start seriously re-evaluating our timelines. Because if the Switch 2 reveal is in March they'll be wanting to talk about how these games exist across both and are potentially better on Switch 2. Even if they happen to launch before the Switch 2 is out

Also, I think there's two other possibilities that still leave the door open for a March reveal without a "February Partner Direct". If there's nothing in February at all then obviously the February Direct can't step on its toes. Secondly.... I think there's non-zero chance that a February Direct could include an announcement of the reveal of the Switch 2 highlighting the Switch end of that equation

Basically, I think there's a chance that at some point in the February Direct we get something like: "we are currently working on a successor for the Nintendo Switch, the Switch [redacted] to be released in 2024, this new hardware will be backwards with existing Switch titles including (free?) upgrades to enhanced versions of select Switch titles. Please stay tuned next month for a special Switch [redacted] Direct". If they did that it'd allow them to talk about Switch compatible titles deep into 2024 without sniping the reason why it's worth getting the new hardware

I don't think they will.... but it's possible...

I don't think we hear anything about Switch 2 in March. That's way too early.

Cause they're not doing a summer release. That makes no sense (except Sept which is technically summer, but I mean June, July or August). And an announcement will slow sales of Switch immediately.

I expect March to come and go, routine and business as usual.

With Switch they had nothing to lose announcing 6 mo prior, and everything to gain. And needed time to sell the concept. With Switch 2, they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by announcing that early. The concept is already sold. So what advantage would a March announcement bring vs waiting until summer with a 3-5 month lead time? I can't think of any.

@JaxonH If it's launching this year, they'll mention it by early May at the latest because of the fiscal year shareholders meeting. Even if it's just something as vague as "Project [insert codename] is launching this fiscal year, more info in the future".

The proper reveal however, who knows as we're entering completely new times. This is the first year since 1994 that companies won't be preparing at all for E3 given the event was permanently cancelled last year. We may get a situation where gaming news this year is all over the place.

If the proper reveal is in March, I think Nintendo would pull the 2020 trick. Namely let the big game release (ACNH back then, Princess Peach Showtime now) and then do a Direct the following week.

@JaxonH
I'm not super convinced they'd be too worried about impacting sales over that period. If you were to slice hardware sales evenly across the entire year into 3 you'd get Jan-Jun, Jun-Nov and Nov/Dec. That's how heavily skewed sales are to Nov/Dec. You're talking here about going for something like a July announcement as opposed to March. Sure that's four months but in in terms of sales you're talking here about what's basically the equivalent to 1/5th of the year. 6 months mid year isn't even remotely the same as 6 months from October they did for Switch. Not sure it's much of a concern

Also, there are positives to announcing earlier. My view is that if they announce early and have something good to say about backwards/forward compatibility that gives existing owners more confidence to buy games on Switch. And at this stage in the game I think game sales for Switch matter more. It also gives them more time to establish their message about why this is a thing people want. If there are cross-gen games they can build up hype for those titles and attach that message to the new hardware. It also means that third parties can start throwing that Switch 2 logo on their trailers which allows Nintendo to have some of that hype brush off on them

To be clear, I'm not betting the house on March, I'm not sure at all how this plays out. But I think a March announcement for a release in September/October makes more sense than, for example, a June announcement for the same. And it makes even more sense if the release is July/August. And with E3 dead and rumour mongers talking March? I'm down for March, as good a month as any

@JaxonH exactly that why a summer anouncement(june/july), would be ideal and launch the console in septembre/octobre or spring 2025(march/april).

Ok, so I've been wondering this for awhile:

Why does everyone seem so certain that Nintendo is doing lots of cross-gen games between the Switch and Switch 2? I know we have a couple big-time examples from the past like BotW on Wii U and Switch, Twlight Princess on Gamecube and Wii, and there have been some smaller games that a quick Google search turned up... but in general, when Nintendo releases a new system, it's new system time and there's no looking back.

I mean, they can still release Switch 1 games, sure, and maybe a couple "special" ones will be cross-gen, but I don't see this playing out any differently for Nintendo than it has before: Switch 1 was massive and will definitely get releases for another year or so, but in general the new "big" games will be coming out for Switch 2 and Switch 2 only.

Unless I missed something big? Or if we're just going based on what Sony and Microsoft have been doing the last couple gens (doing it waaaaaaaaay too much, in my opinion - geez, I feel like they still haven't moved onto the PS5 lol).

Edit: And the whole upscaling/re-releasing Switch 1 games for Switch 2 thing especially puzzles me. I know they used to do that a lot with VC/eShop stuff before NSO, but big games of consecutive generations? They just haven't really done that before, and I don't see them starting to do it now.

@rallydefault One obvious candidate for cross-gen is third party games. If they are not games which require massive resources, why not have them be cross-gen for a while? But what you said is basically what everyone is expecting for Nintendo itself - the big games (e.g. next 3D Mario) will be Switch 2 exclusive as a way to get people to upgrade. Smaller Nintendo games and ports? It would make sense for those type of things to be on Switch 1 also for at least a year — time will tell whether this cross-gen time will be one year or several years (re: PlayStation) for those smaller games. It may depend how fast the massive Switch userbase is upgrading since Nintendo wants to keep selling software to everyone. Also however, 'what Nintendo has always done' is not necessarily what we should be thinking about since they have screwed up generation transfers before and we know they will be especially careful this time.

@rallydefault They supported 3DS for 2 years after the Switch launched (final 1st party release was Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn in March 2019) and so if Switch 2 has backwards compatibility, Switch 1 being treated the same after Switch 2 launch would essentially mean a load of games playable on both.