Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa recently confirmed plans for the mysterious new Nintendo Switch successor to be unveiled within this fiscal year, which spans through March 31, 2025. Other official details about the Switch successor (dubbed the “Nintendo Switch 2”) are currently scarce, but Furukawa also revealed that the new console will feature backwards compatibility with its predecessor.
New rumors about the Switch 2 continue to surface with the latest one now indicating when we might be able to expect the new device to launch. This information comes directly from Nintendúo, who claims that they’ve received direct confirmation from at least six game development companies.
According to Nintendúo, the Nintendo Switch 2 is slated to be released somewhere around June or July 2025. This would give Nintendo a short window between the console’s announcement and release, but this is fairly similar to how the Nintendo Switch’s launch was handled.
Notably, the Nintendo Switch was originally announced back on October 20, 2016. It would then be released worldwide a little over four months later on March 3, 2017.
At this point, it’s been over seven years since the Switch was made available in retail. This longevity can be mostly attributed to its success considering that it’s now the third best-selling gaming device of all time with 146.04 million sales.
Based on what is now officially known about the Switch 2’s backwards compatibility, it feels like a safe bet to assume that the upcoming console will be also be a hybrid device that acts as a direct upgrade over its predecessor.
Rumors seem to be suggesting that the Switch is to be priced around 400 to 500 Euros. For those of us in the United States, that’d be somewhere in the area of $422.67 to $528.33.
“Yes! Yooka-Replaylee will be playable on PS5, Xbox Series consoles and… Nintendo? Ooh mysterious. We’ll have more on that as soon as poss!” — Yooka-Replaylee website
In a recent trailer advertising Yooka-Replaylee, fans learned that the game will be coming to the PC, Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, and “Nintendo.” There was a suspicious animation that appeared to feature the eyes of Cappy (from Super Mario Odyssey) that was specifically hovering around the Nintendo logo.
Over on the official website for Yooka-Replaylee, the developers provided more information about this. Through these coy actions, it really does feel like they’re explicitly hinting that Yooka-Replaylee is slated to be released for the Switch 2. Of course, there’s currently no information about this game’s release date.
“Yes! Yooka-Replaylee will be playable on PS5, Xbox Series consoles and… Nintendo?” said in an official statement by the Yooka-Replaylee developers on their website. “Ooh mysterious. We’ll have more on that as soon as poss!”
Around this time, Masahiro Sakurai wrapped up his schedule for releasing content on his YouTube channel. In his final celebratory video, he revealed that he had been working on a secret game project since April 2022.
“I’m sorry I can’t share more about this project, but assuming we’re able to get it made, it should be announced sooner or later.” — Masahiro Sakurai
“It was around July 2021. I was busy working on the DLC of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” said Sakurai back then. “To be precise, I was putting together the video for ‘Mr. Sakurai Presents Kazuya.’ Sora was in development too, of course. While I was busy working on those tasks, I received a request to write a game proposal, which I finished at lightning speed.”
Considering the length of time in which Sakurai has been involved with this mysterious game, it seems likely that the announcement of this project is being held off until the unveiling of the Switch 2. Ultimately though, Sakurai did declare that we shouldn’t have to wait too much longer for this to happen.
“I’m sorry I can’t share more about this project, but assuming we’re able to get it made, it should be announced sooner or later,” said Sakurai.
All of this seems to be pointing towards the imminent announcement of the Switch 2, likely after the 2024 holiday season. With that in mind, a release window around June or July 2025 feels like a credible possibility.