The next console probably won’t look like this but Nintendo surely has new hardware in the pipeline (Picture: Nintendo)
Aside from showing how profitable Super Mario’s become, Nintendo’s latest fiscal report may reveal new features of the Switch 2.
The latest financial results from Nintendo dropped a lot of new information. Aside from providing updated sales figures for Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, cementing it as one of the top selling Nintendo Switch games ever, the company announced a live action Zelda movie is in the works.
Surprisingly, president Shuntaro Furukawa also went out of his way to deny the big Switch 2 rumours, such as its private Gamescom 2023 showing.
While it makes sense for Nintendo to keep acting like the Switch 2 isn’t a thing (admitting to it now would undermine Christmas sales for the current console), it’s strange to deny them so fervently even while the financial results themselves hint at the new console’s existence.
Although the current Switch will soon be entering its eighth year (which in console terms makes it practically ancient), Nintendo has maintained that it’ll keep making new games for it, beyond the ones already scheduled for 2024.
Between this and the Switch’s continued sales success, you could argue this means that Nintendo has no intention of launching a new console next year. However, Nintendo says that it wants to keep pushing out Switch games ‘without being bound by the traditional concept of the platform lifecycle.’
This very much suggests that Nintendo will keep supporting the current Switch even after the Switch 2 takes centre stage. As such, you should probably expect any Switch 2 games to be cross-gen and thus work on the original Switch as well.
‘Going forward, we would like to continue to see many consumers play Nintendo Switch, and to maintain our business momentum,’ the company adds.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – the Switch’s current line-up feels like Nintendo’s winding things down but that’s apparently not the case (Picture: Nintendo)
Speaking of long-term support, Nintendo also touches upon its account system for the Switch. A previous discussion, about ensuring the smooth transition to a new console by leveraging Nintendo accounts, practically confirms that the Switch 2 will let users transfer their accounts, and a new statement this week only reinforces that.
‘The introduction of Nintendo Account made it possible to tie a user’s history to their personal account,’ says Nintendo, mentioning how beforehand it was difficult to maintain user information from platform to platform.
‘This will be a foundation upon which Nintendo can maintain a lasting relationship with consumers,’ it continues. If users can carry their accounts over, it’s reasonable to assume that they can play any digital games tied to their account on the Switch 2, thus also confirming it will offer digital backwards compatibility.
All that’s really left is for Nintendo to announce the console, but when that’ll happen is anyone’s guess. 2024 seems the most likely time but between Nintendo’s unpredictably and the fact that Switch sales are still strong, maybe it’ll hold things off until 2025.
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Elsewhere in the financial results, Nintendo touches upon how much more successful some of its franchises have become thanks to the Switch. Sales for the likes of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons have far exceeded previous entries, breaking sales records, and some have become continued long-term sellers.
You’d expect sales for individual games to drop off after a year, but games like Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and Ring Fit Adventure have kept momentum long after they launched. In Breath Of The Wild’s case, only about 25% or so of its lifetime sales came from its first year.
The recently released Super Mario Bros. Wonder will no doubt follow the same pattern as it’s sold 4.3 million units in its first two weeks. Nintendo says this makes it the fastest selling Super Mario related game ever, although this is only taking into account games that launched from the Nintendo DS and Wii era onwards.
Nintendo highlights the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie as a contributing factor and also expects it’ll benefit sales for upcoming projects like the Super Mario RPG remake and Princess Peach Showtime.
Nintendo’s already updated Peach’s design so she looks like her movie counterpart… at least on the box art (Picture: Nintendo/Metro.co.uk)
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Aside from showing how profitable Super Mario’s become, Nintendo’s latest fiscal report may reveal new features of the Switch 2.