A third of the way through the Nintendo Switch 2 livestream, the company decided to drop the release date, rather than waiting for the grand finale. And it’s a lot sooner than most people were expecting.
The release date of the Nintendo Switch 2 will by June 5, 2025, just over two months from now, and managing to get out before the second half of the year, not bothering with a holiday window launch. What we do not know yet (at the time I’m writing this, and will update if that changes), is the price. Most believe it will be $400 for the normal edition.
You have probably forgotten this at this point, but the Nintendo Switch 2 launched on March 3, 2017, so this is going to be a little bit more than eight years between generations of the systems, despite some mid-gen upgrades like the OLED edition. But there have not been significant power increases until now.
This is perhaps two-thirds of the way through the current PS5/Xbox Series generation, and both Sony and Microsoft will be gearing up to launch new consoles in the next few years. Xbox, in particular, is supposed to be working on a dedicated Xbox handheld, which would be more of a direct competitor to the Switch. But when we’re talking about “console wars” these days, Microsoft has essentially surrendered, Sony is doing fine and the Switch is in an entirely different league, with the original now the third best-selling piece of video game hardware in history, behind only the DS and the PS2 with 150 million copies sold. 5 million more and it will beat the DS. 10 million and it beats the PS2. But with the Switch 2 out in two months, that may not happen.
How big of a hit will Switch 2 be? Obviously a big hit, but as big as the OG Switch? We are going to need many, many years to know that, but Nintendo is pretty open about sales so we will know much about the initial launch right away. It’s hard to fathom it will put up anything other than big numbers. We will find out in just two months, it seems.
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