Is this the sunset year for the Switch? (Picture: Nintendo)

GameCentral completes its preview of the year ahead for the three console manufacturers and attempts the impossible by predicting Nintendo.

To usher in the new year, we’ve already done prediction articles for the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S, which was really hard, actually, because Sony and Microsoft are playing their cards very close to their chest at the moment. It used to be Nintendo that that was the reclusive and uncommunicative one but not only have they swapped that role with Sony, but they’ve also been releasing far more first party games, over the last couple of years, than either rival.

If there’s one thing every Nintendo fans knows, it’s that you can’t predict the House of Mario and yet it’s sorely tempting to say that it’s obvious what they’re planning to do in 2024. They have a number of low-key titles planned for the first half of the year but nothing after that, so the natural assumption is that they will announce a new console – referred to by fans as the Switch 2 – sometime before a Christmas release.

Times may have changed, but that still sounds far too straightforward for Nintendo. Perhaps the new console will only be announced in 2024, with more filler content to round out the year, or maybe the Switch 2 won’t be what some fans are expecting…

For the last year or so there have been lots of rumours of the Switch 2 being unusually powerful for a Nintendo console, but estimates have varied widely form less powerful than a PlayStation 4 to almost as capable as a PlayStation 5, with a similar variation in rumours when it comes to its capabilities in terms of things like ray-tracing and DLSS.

The rule of thumb for any console is to assume it’s less powerful than the hype suggests, but one of the more recent rumours seemed to imply that the Switch 2 may be closer to the abandoned Switch Pro console than anything else. But that’s just a rumour like all the rest and Nintendo rumours – distinct from those about any other company – have an uncanny habit of never coming true.

If you believe the best case scenario then the Switch 2 will be a powerful hybrid that will launch this year with a new 3D Mario game, but a worst case scenario could mean no new hardware and Nintendo’s big Christmas game being just another remaster of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

In terms of what we know for a fact about Nintendo’s 2024 plans, they already have a modest but not uninteresting line-up of remasters, DLC, and a brand new franchise.

Another Code: Recollection (January 19), Mario Vs. Donkey Kong (February 16), Luigi’s Mansion 2 (Q3), and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are all great games and the latter in particular is especially good to see again, as it’s the pinnacle of the franchise, from when it was still a proper role-playing game.

Paper Mario doesn’t have a release date yet but, as you can see, the others do, with Luigi’s Mansion 2 being the furthest out, at somewhere between July and September. There’s also the Side Order single-player DLC for Splatoon 3 sometime in Q2 and Princess Peach: Showtime! on March 22.

Showtime! is only the second time Peach has had a game to herself and while it’s still not entirely clear how the game will play it seems to revolve around Peach using a variety of different outfits – from swordfighter to cook – that grant different abilities. Calling it a brand new franchise might be a little generous but it could potentially be that, if it turns out to be the Peach equivalent of the Wario Land games.

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So that’s all we know for sure about Nintendo. You could speculate endlessly about what else they’re up to but history suggests that you’re unlikely to get even half of it right. The Switch has been Nintendo’s most successful console ever, besides the DS, but they’ve never been very consistent when it comes to follow-up consoles.

Even the NES to SNES and DS to 3DS saw a drop in sales, if not quality, so if the Switch 2 does end up as successful as its predecessor it will be very much breaking the mould. That is what Nintendo is famed for but even they will find the next console transition a challenge.

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GameCentral completes its preview of the year ahead for the three console manufacturers and attempts the impossible by predicting Nintendo.