Nintendo fans have been given some new insight into the company's plans for its upcoming successor to the Nintendo Switch. According to a recent report from Nikkei, Nintendo is now targeting a March 2025 release date for its new console, delaying the console's debut by over a year from previous estimates of a 2024 launch.
Nikkei believes that Nintendo has strategic reasons for pushing back the timeline. Since the Switch is still very popular, the company wants to support it with new games until early 2025. This will give developers more time to create titles for the new hardware.
Perhaps more importantly, Nintendo is focused on avoiding the supply issues that plagued the launches of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. By planning further ahead, Nintendo hopes to manufacture enough units of the new console before it hits store shelves.
The report also sheds some light on the features of the new console. It is said to continue Nintendo's focus on hybrid portability, similar to the original Switch. The screen will also be slightly larger than the original, while maintaining the same hybrid design.
Other reports claim the Switch 2 could have as much as 12GB of RAM. That is three times the amount found on the original Switch and also more than the 10GB of RAM that Microsoft put into the Xbox Series S console.
In August 2023, Nintendo reportedly showed off demos of the Switch 2 console behind closed doors to developers and publishers. The software demoed on the early Switch 2 hardware reportedly included an updated version of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but with a higher frame rate and resolution compared to the original Switch version.
If Nikkei's report is accurate, it would mean that the launch of the Switch 2 will be close to the release date of the original Switch model, which went on sale on March 3, 2017.
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