Although nothing had ever been confirmed, there had been enough rumors flying around that the Nintendo Switch 2 was to be released in time for the holidays this year, with a potential announcement as early as next month.
On Friday, stories began to circulate that Nintendo was now telling its key developers that the hardware would be pushed back until Q1 next year. The reason suggested is not necessarily due to a delay in the hardware, but rather to ensure a strong enough library of games is available at launch.
Regardless of the sound theory behind pushing back the highly-anticipated successor to the Switch, Nintendo’s shares collapsed by nearly 9% in early Tokyo trading on Monday. The 8.8% drop to below ¥8,200 was the biggest decline in over two years.
Later trading saw Nintendo recover slightly to ¥8,356, still a 6% drop since the news hit.
With very few major titles remaining for release on the Switch this year, Nintendo will be keen to ensure the Switch 2 arrives in Q1 as now planned, in order to squeeze it into this financial year.
While the likes of Luigi’s Mansion 2, Princess Peach: Showtime! And Paper Mario: A Thousand Year Door should all perform well, once the Switch 2 gets an official announcement there will be an inevitable factor of Nintendo’s hardcore fanbase who begin to hold off, preferring to wait until they get their hands on the new console.
This could mean that the announcement that was potentially planned for next Monday according to some, gets pushed back until late summer, in order to lessen this effect, although with news now flowing seemingly freely about the new machine, there may be a limit on how long Nintendo feels it can maintain silent and control the narrative.
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