Nintendo's shares in Japan have dropped after last week's report that the Switch successor will now not be launching until Q1 2025 (thanks, VGC).
The company posted a record high for shares last month, as 'Switch 2 fever' seemed to be sweeping the globe. However, following the claim by Brazilian journalist Pedro Henrique Lutti Lippe that the next hardware will not be released until 2025 (something that VCG and Eurogamer also corroborated), the shares seem to no longer be on the rise.
As reported by Bloomberg, Nintendo shares dipped by as much as 8.8% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following last week's update before settling on an overall value loss of 5.8%. As noted by VGC, these are still decent numbers for the company but are a marked decline from January's success.
Bloomberg's report quotes LightStream Research analyst Mio Kato, who suggests that Nintendo's shares could continue to fall as new buyers become increasingly "impatient for the company to put up visible numbers":
Nintendo’s numbers for the March 2025 fiscal year could start to look rather ugly if key software is delayed at the same time that the current hardware has aged so much
Conversely, the report also quotes Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu, who suggests that shares might, in fact, bounce back from this as investors seek to buy in on a dip. Zhu still expects an announcement of the Switch successor to come in the next six months, Bloomberg notes.
Shares are bound to ebb and flow as reports of what's next for Nintendo continue to flood in. Of course, we won't know anything for sure until Nintendo provides an official word on the matter. Which has to come at some point, right?