There have been quite a few rumblings of late of a next generation Nintendo console being in the works and edging closer to release in the not-too-distant future, and amidst those reports, Microsoft has suggested that the console will launch sometime in 2024.
In recently submitted court documents as part of legal proceedings against the FTC regarding its proposed Activision Blizzard, while explaining why it views only PlayStation as direct competition for Xbox and not Nintendo, the company mentioned a launch “as early as next year” for the Switch successor.
“Microsoft tracks Xbox’s performance against PlayStation not because those two consoles provide a complete competitive landscape, but rather because they were released at the same time,” the document reads (page 92). “Switch was released three years earlier, and Nintendo is expected to release the successor to the Switch as early as next year, whereas PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X|S are at a different stage of the console life cycle.”
Having entered the seventh year of its lifecycle, it’s no surprise that the Nintendo Switch is seemingly headed for its twilight era, and this deep into its life, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest to see Nintendo release a successor in the relatively near future.
Earlier this year, reports claimed that development on the Switch successor was progressing well, but that it wouldn’t be out anytime before spring 2024 at the earliest. Meanwhile, more recent reports have claimed that the next Nintendo console could launch in Q1 2024, though Nintendo has previously said that it has no new hardware releases planned for the current fiscal year (which ends on March 31, 2024).