The query on everybody’s lips proper now’s: Swap 2 when? Now in its eighth yr, the present handheld hybrid is greater than slightly lengthy within the tooth, and the proof continues to mount that followers nonetheless have a little bit of a wait to go earlier than Nintendo launches its subsequent console.
“No developer I’ve spoken to expects it to be launching this monetary yr,” head of GameIndustry.biz, Christopher Dring, stated on the newest episode of GI Microcast (through VGC). “In actual fact, they’ve been informed to not count on it within the [current] monetary yr. A bunch of individuals I spoke to hope it’s out in April or Might time, nonetheless early subsequent yr, not late.”
That’s constant with earlier reporting that whereas Nintendo had, at one level, deliberate to launch the Swap 2 in 2024, it finally determined to delay the brand new {hardware} to 2025. Nintendo additionally hasn’t included new {hardware} in its forecast for the present fiscal yr, although the corporate stated that wasn’t essentially a sign of it future plans, that are at all times altering.
Dring’s reporting can be the newest indication {that a} Swap 2 may slip behind the unique {hardware}’s launch technique. The primary Swap was revealed in September 2016 and launched in March of the next yr. Followers have been hoping that the customary Nintendo Direct in September, which hasn’t but been formally introduced, could be when the corporate first shares a glimpse of its subsequent console.
But when a Swap 2 isn’t coming till April or past, it’s at all times doable that the corporate waits till 2025 to spill the beans, particularly because it doubles-down plans to promote one other 10 million models of the present handheld hybrid heading into the vacation season and past. The Swap is already the longest Nintendo has ever gone between consoles in its historical past. It’s sounding increasingly like followers will nonetheless be taking part in their Swap when it reaches its ninth yr as properly.
