Nintendo’s share price has rebounded following the company’s confirmation that the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible.
Shares in Nintendo fell yesterday after the company reported plummeting profits and revenue off the back of less than expected Switch sales for the current financial year. Nintendo revised its forecasts down, with the world waiting with bated breath for the announcement of the Switch 2.
This morning, Nintendo confirmed that Switch software will be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch. “In addition to being able to play Nintendo Switch software they currently own, consumers will be able to choose their next purchase from a broad selection of titles released for Nintendo Switch,” Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said. “Further information about the successor to Nintendo Switch, including its compatibility with Nintendo Switch I explained today, will be announced at a later date.”
That announcement appears to have brought investors back on-side, with shares in Nintendo up 5.8% today, November 6. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japan game industry consultancy Kantan Games, said investors believe backwards compatibility “is a sign Nintendo's next device will not be a risky experiment but rather a continuation.”
This tallies with a recent Nintendo Switch 2 leak that included photos of what looked like actual hardware, photos that the tech experts at Digital Foundry said were “almost certainly real.”
The set of photos, said to have emerged from a Chinese website before making their way to reddit, include prototype components and provide “our first hard evidence of what form the machine may actually take,” Digital Foundry said in a post on Eurogamer and in a video on YouTube.
The photos, which also include shots of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) modeling, reveal an eight-inch LCD, a larger form factor, and new Joy-Cons connecting via magnetic rails. The leak also reveals twin USB-C ports top and bottom (the suggestion here is the top port is for peripherals such as an external camera or charging while in table-top play), a Micro-SD card slot, and cartridge support, “with strong hints that original Switch media is also supported,” Digital Foundry said.
It also discussed the specifications of the Switch 2 (12GB of RAM in total with a maximum of 102GB/s of bandwidth). The original Switch has 4GB.
A summary of today's alleged Switch 2 images 'leak'. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/Z4rfSGz4WQ
— Andy Robinson (@Andy_VGC) September 18, 2024
(3/3) pic.twitter.com/uHApHsgxeW
— Andy Robinson (@Andy_VGC) September 18, 2024
The Nintendo Switch is a groundbreaking console that successfully fused home and handheld gaming (basically the Wii and DS) to form an accessible device boosted by high quality exclusives. Since launching in March 2017, Switch has sold an incredible 146.04 million units, with total software sales of 1.3061 billion units, setting a new record for a Nintendo gaming platform. More software has been played on Nintendo Switch than on any other Nintendo hardware.
Some had wondered whether Nintendo planned to change the game again with its Switch successor by coming up with another unexpected hardware function or form factor, but it seems investors at least are happy with the prospect of a safer follow-up that leans on the existing and enormous Switch player base (Nintendo said Switch has 127 million annual playing users even now in the console’s eighth year) rather than a hard reset. To that end, Nintendo Switch Online will also carry over to the Switch 2, Nintendo has confirmed.
Nintendo has said it will announce the Switch 2 at some point during its current financial year, so before April 2025. Analysts have said it is now unlikely that Nintendo will make its move before the end of 2024, which means we’re looking to January at the earliest for a reveal.
As for when the Switch 2 will release, all we know for sure is it won’t be before April.
Photo by Philip FONG / AFP.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
