Nintendo Switch 2 “cannot come soon enough”, analyst says for sales-related reasons, rather than just being desperate to play things on it like the rest of us

The Nintendo Switch 2 was finally revealed last month, and naturally that led to a big change. Rather than everyone asking ‘when Switch 2 reveal?’, everyone’s now going even harder on asking ‘when Switch 2 arrive?’.

Well, according to one industry analyst following the arrival of Nintendo’s latest financial report, the answer is that it “cannot come soon enough”, because its predcessor’s not doing as well sales-wise as the company had anticpated.

The analyst in question, Dr Serkan Toto of Japanese consultancy firm Kantan Games, gave that view to VGC in response to Nintendo revealing its latest earnings report covering the final three months of 2024. Basically, this stack of numbers and graphs showed that, while the OG Switch has now surpassed 150 million units sold, its sales are slowing down in a manner that’s required Nintendo to lower its forecast for the rest of this fiscal year, which ends in March.

Sales of the Switch hardware wise are down more than 30% compared to last year, and software sales are also down 24%, with the slate of games on offer seemingly playing a key role in that. 2023 had both The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which sits among the top 10 the top-selling Switch titles of all-time, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, while 2024’s new arrivals were the likes of Super Mario Party Jamboree, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and Mario & Luigi Brothership.

Those have sold 6.17, 3.91, and 1.4 million units respectively in their relatively short lifespans so far, according to these results that end December 31, 2024.

Pointing out that this isn’t the first time in recent history Nintendo’s had to lower its hardware sales forecast, Toto commented to VGC that these latest results make it “much clearer how Nintendo overestimated the life that is still left in the Switch at the start of the fiscal year”.

“I’m not sure why they thought they would sell 14 million units this fiscal year with a very dry software slate,” he added, “Switch 2 cannot come soon enough. I hope for them it is not scheduled for Fall, like not too few people believe.”

Nintendo needs a less dry game slate? Hey, all we can say is, we recently came up with a list of definitely not Switch 2 launch titles we’d want to see as Switch 2 launch titles. Maybe they’re worth looking into.