Nintendo Switch Sales Plummet, Should You Expect A Switch 2 Game Console Soon?
Nintendo Switch console sales took a turn for the worse with Nintendo reporting a sizable year-over-year decline in units sold for its fiscal year.. This in turn contributed to a 5.5 percent drop in Nintendo's overall revenue for the year, and a 9.4 percent dip in profit. All of which raises the question, is a Switch 2 or Switch Pro finally imminent?
The Switch recently turned six years old (see our Switch review from 2017). What's interesting about the console's longevity and ability to stay relevant is that it was never the most powerful game system on the block. However, the combination of its hybrid form factor and Nintendo's iconic IP (Mario, Donkey Kong, and so forth) made it an instant success.
Nintendo also kept things fresh by releasing revisions along the way. It started with simultaneously revising the original Switch console with an IGZO panel and better battery life, and introducing a Switch Lite. Then in 2021, Nintendo offered up a Switch OLED variant. There have also been themed edition consoles, though outside of the different displays and storage, they're all based on the same core CPU and GPU hardware—NVIDIA's Tegra X1 SoC.
Overall hardware sales for the Switch began to decline prior the introduction of the OLED model. The refresh bolstered sales the following the year, but now they've plunged to their lowest collective level since Nintendo's fiscal 2019.
Source: Nintendo
"Units sold declined 22.1 percent year-on-year to 17.97 million units, as shortages of semiconductors and other
components impacted production until around the end of summer, and we did not experience the growth in sales mainly during the
holiday season that we saw in the previous fiscal year," Nintendo said.
In contrast, Nintendo sold over 23 million Switch consoles the year prior. Despite the drop, however, Nintendo does not appear to be in a rush to introduce another game system. The Switch is Nintendo's second-best selling console of all time at 125.62 million units sold, behind only the Nintendo DS, which has sold 154.02 million units. And if looking at software sales, the Switch has sold more games than any previous console in Nintendo's long-running arsenal at over 1 billion units.
This suggests that Nintendo can coast for a bit longer before focusing on whatever comes next, be it a Switch 2, Switch Pro, or something completely different. And even though hardware sales are trending downward again, Nintendo doesn't view it as being 'game over' for the console.
"By continuing to convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch, we try to not only put one system in every home, but
several in every home, or even one for every person. Another objective is to continually release new offerings so more consumers
keep playing Nintendo Switch even longer and we can maximize hardware sales," Nintendo stated in its latest earnings report (PDF).
So to answer to the question we posed, no, you probably shouldn't expect a Switch 2 in the near future (as in, this year anyway). Instead, look for more themed releases like the recently introduced The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom edition.
