Gaming giant Nintendo is expected to announce a successor to its wildly successful Switch gaming console within the year.
The news comes as the Switch enters its eighth year on the market, leading to an inevitable tapering off of interest in the hybrid device.
“We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year,” Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa wrote on X.
“It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation.”
This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct…
— 任天堂株式会社（企業広報・IR） (@NintendoCoLtd) May 7, 2024
Total hardware sales for the Nintendo Switch family decreased 12.6% year on year in fiscal 2024, with a total of 15.7 million units sold compared to 17.97 million units the previous year.
Nintendo warned about lower revenues in the year ahead, with net sales expected to decrease by 19.3% to 1.35 trillion yen (US$8.7 billion) and net profit anticipated to fall by 38.9% to 300 billion yen.
The group flagged concerns over the Switch's ability to sustain sales momentum in its eighth year, underscoring the importance of a successor.
Intellectual property-related income has become a major revenue driver as Switch sales begin to fall off.
IP-related income grew by 81.6% year-on-year to 92.7 billion yen (US$600 million), bolstered mainly by movie-related sales and an increase in royalty income from The Super Mario Bros. Movie.