Of us, it lastly occurred…kind of. Nintendo formally (and remarkably casually) acknowledged its successor to the Nintendo Swap, stating that it will likely be introduced “inside this fiscal yr” as a part of an investor assembly this week, which means we’ll hear about it earlier than April 2025. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa took to the corporate’s Twitter account to make the announcement himself, and his message all however confirms that the next-generation console, which was reportedly slated for 2024, has been delayed into 2025.
Furukawa’s message makes point out of Nintendo’s next-gen console, saying the way it may have been “over 9 years” for the reason that Swap was introduced, but additionally confirmed that there will likely be a customary Nintendo Direct in June. Whereas this may’ve usually been a part of E3 (RIP), it’s nonetheless slotted across the identical time as many different corporations’ displays and bulletins, although Furukawa didn’t affirm a selected date for the Direct. Crucially, he careworn that people shouldn’t anticipate any point out of the Swap successor at this Direct, which is able to as a substitute deal with the rest of the Swap’s 2024 lineup. So don’t all get too excited for information of this factor subsequent month. My cash’s on a proper Swap 2 (or no matter it finally ends up being referred to as) announcement early within the fall.
Hypothesis about Nintendo’s next-generation console has picked up significantly within the final yr, particularly as landmark titles like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Tremendous Mario Bros. Marvel launched and the Swap’s 2024 lineup appeared to skinny considerably. Even now, a lot of the huge first-party titles arriving on the Swap for the rest of the yr are ports or remasters of current video games, reminiscent of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Yr Door and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. In lieu of main titles, focus has shifted dramatically to rumors concerning the Swap’s successor, and they’re quite a few.
It’s been reported that numerous titles are being held for the Swap 2 lineup subsequent yr, and it’s now totally inside the realm of chance to posit that video games like Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which was introduced for “Nintendo Swap programs” a number of months in the past, will likely be a part of the console’s launch window. The Swap 2 was additionally reportedly delayed in an effort to, amongst different issues, be capable to higher meet the demand for a brand new system and fight resellers, which tracks given how tough it was to get your palms on a Swap when it launched again in 2017. It sounds prefer it’ll be price it, although, as a result of in keeping with another rumors floating round, the Swap 2 appears prone to have magnetic Pleasure-Cons, an 8-inch LCD display, and can apparently be “clocked loopy low” when undocked in an effort to considerably increase its battery life on the go.
Whereas I count on reporting on Swap 2 rumors to choose up much more now, it formally appears like we received’t have to attend for much longer to determine what this factor actually is. Start the countdown, y’all, we’re within the dwelling stretch.
