Nintendo to announce new flagship Switch console this fiscal year

Nintendo on Tuesday said it will announce the successor to its flagship Switch this fiscal year, after the company forecast a sharp drop in profit as it predicts fewer sales of its ageing console.

The new Switch will be announced in the fiscal year ended March 2025, according to a Google-translated post on X from the company which quotes Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa. The firm added that there would be no details about the new console at the upcoming Nintendo Direct event in June.

The comments come after Nintendo reported financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year ended March 2024.

Earlier this year, Nintendo hiked its forecast for sales of its flagship Switch console to 15.5 million units in its fiscal year ended March. The company beat its expectations, selling 15.7 million units of the Switch in the fiscal year.

The company said it expects to sell 13.5 million Switch consoles in the fiscal year ended March 2025.

Investors have been focused on any comments from Nintendo regarding a successor to the Switch, which is now more than seven years old. Analysts told CNBC earlier this year that they expected a Switch 2 to be launched in 2024, though Nintendo has been tight-lipped about the new console.

The Japanese gaming giant has managed to extend the life of the current Switch thanks to the release of the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the flagship Zelda game last year, which boosted interest in the console and related games.

“The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” and “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” were among Nintendo’s top-selling games for the fiscal year. However, Nintendo’s games pipeline for this year remains thin.

With a new console in the works, Nintendo aims to capitalize on interest in its famous characters and revive sales in its hardware business.

The ageing nature of the Switch is starting to show in the company’s forecasts. For the fiscal year ended March 2025, Nintendo forecast net sales of 1.35 trillion yen and net profit of 300 billion yen. That was much lower than what analysts had forecast, according to LSEG estimates. Nintendo’s forecast represents a 39% year-on-year fall in profit.

Here’s how Nintendo did in its fiscal fourth quarter versus LSEG estimates:

• Revenue: 277.1 billion Japanese yen ($1.8 billion) versus 280.6 billion yen expected.
• Net profit: 82.6 billion yen versus 57.2 billion yen expected.

Fiscal fourth quarter revenue fell nearly 10% year-on-year while net profit dropped 4.5%.

For the full fiscal year ended March 2024, Nintendo said sales totaled 1.7 trillion yen, beating analyst estimates. That’s a 4.4% year-on-year rise. Net profit came in at 490.6 billion yen, beating market estimates, and up 13.4% year-on-year.