A few rumors have surfaced recently suggesting that Nintendo is preparing for their next Nintendo Direct for sometime this month or early February. According to these rumors, Nintendo is supposedly aiming to finish up announcements surrounding the Switch.
While this does sound nice, it also seems to suggest that there won’t be any news regarding the Nintendo Switch follow up or dubbed “Switch 2” with this upcoming presentation. Though we don’t have any confirmation about these rumors, the idea that Nintendo would want one more Direct to close out announcements concerning the Switch’s exclusive game library before announcing the next console does actually make a lot of sense.
Back in May 2023, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa made an interesting statement during Nintendo’s financial report presentation that there were no plans to release any new hardware during the current fiscal year. This statement proved to be true.
It should be noted that Nintendo’s fiscal year for 2023 will end on March 31, 2024. New hardware for 2024 hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but rumors have been circulating like crazy.
At the end of the last Nintendo Direct, Nintendo revealed Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door as a remake for the Switch as its final game of the showcase. While there are plenty of reasons for fans to be excited for this sort of game, Nintendo essentially revealed a remake of an older game from the GameCube era as their biggest and final reveal of the presentation.
Needless to say, this really does seem to suggest that the Nintendo Switch is at the end of its lifecycle. The gaming company probably has a few last surprises for the Switch before they’re ready to unveil the new console.
For example, there’s still plenty we don’t know about with regards to Princess Peach: Showtime, a game slated to release on the Nintendo Switch on March 22, 2024. There are probably only other smaller titles that have yet to be announced for the Nintendo Switch aside from Princess Peach: Showtime and the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake.
For games like these, it makes sense for there to be one last Switch-focused Nintendo Direct to close out the Nintendo Switch library. Of course, there will likely be a period of time in which games are released for both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 while the Switch 2 grows its install base, but the next Direct could feature the last set of Switch exclusive games.
Regardless, Nintendo will likely want to announce the new console around late March or early April to have something to please shareholders for their 2024 fiscal year, which begins in April. It might be a little too early for such an announcement in January or February.
Considering that the Switch was originally announced on October 20, 2016 and released about five months later on March 3, 2017, this theoretically could mean a release sometime in fall 2024. Being that the rumored next console will mostly be an upgrade over the Switch, it feels like Nintendo is hoping to continue the success they’ve had with the handheld gaming hybrid console considering that the Switch has sold over 132 million units since release.
Supposedly, the new console was shown to developers behind closed doors at Gamescom 2023. We’ve also heard that developer kits for the Switch 2 are now in the hands of the developers.
With everything that we’ve been hearing about, Nintendo is no doubt preparing for the big unveiling. If Nintendo waits for the start of its 2024 fiscal year, they can then use the summer season to advertise and hype up the new console before the likely release window in fall or winter.
