Nintendo says it’s ‘taking risks’ to meet Switch 2 demand

Nintendo is gearing up for the Switch 2’s launch sometime in 2025, and president Shuntaro Furukawa says that the company is “taking risks and proceeding with production so that we can meet as much demand as possible,” according to a machine translation of an earnings Q&A.

The company had some trouble keeping the original Switch in stock during its very successful 2017 launch. Nintendo isn’t going to reveal its specific Switch 2 production plans until it releases the business plan for its next fiscal year (which begins in April), Furukawa says, but the company wants to gauge demand following the Switch 2-focused Nintendo Direct on April 2nd.

“As with the Nintendo Switch, we believe it will not be easy to rapidly increase production capacity, but based on our past experience, we will make preparations to respond as quickly as possible,” he says.

The Q&A has a few other interesting tidbits:

• Furukawa says that “dedicated software” is important with the launch of a console, which could indicate that Nintendo won’t have many new games for both the original Switch and the Switch 2 (though Switch games will be backward compatible with the Switch 2). The only known Switch 2 game is what appears to be a new Mario Kart, but Nintendo hasn’t said if it will be on the first Switch, too.
• Nintendo doesn’t plan to change the price of the original Switch “at this time,” but it isn’t ready to share the price of the Switch 2 yet. The price will presumably be announced at the Switch 2 Direct.
• Despite generally pulling back on mobile apps, Nintendo is still working on making new game apps and is considering ways to link smartphones to its games.

But there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the Switch 2, and it seems like Nintendo is going to keep a pretty tight lid on things ahead of the Switch 2 Direct. I’m just happy that the Switch 2 looks like a bigger, more refined Switch.

As part of its earnings, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo Switch has sold more than 150 million units, meaning that it’s closing in on surpassing the Nintendo DS.