Nintendo shares dip following reports of a 2025 release for Switch 2

Nintendo‘s shares have dropped in Japan following reports that the successor to the Switch will likely be released in the first quarter of 2025.

A report last week by Brazilian journalist Pedro Henrique Lutti Lippe, which was then backed up by VGC’s own sources, suggested that Nintendo has now told publishers its next console will launch in Q1 2025, instead of late 2024 as had been previously expected.

However, as reported by Bloomberg, share prices in the company dropped on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following the report, dipping by as much as 8.8% before settling on an overall loss in value of 5.8%.

The company’s stock hit an all-time high of ¥8,874 ($59) last week as news of the Switch’s successor seemed increasingly imminent, but at the time of writing this has dropped to ¥8,410 ($56) which, while still high by the company’s standards, nevertheless represents a slip.

According to LightStream Research analyst Mio Kato, who’s quoted in Bloomberg’s report, the drop could continue if the apparent holding back of the next console’s release results in a weak software line-up this year too.

“There seem to be a lot of new buyers of Nintendo who may be less familiar with the name and more impatient for the company to put up visible numbers,” Kato said.

“Nintendo’s numbers for the March 2025 fiscal year could start to look rather ugly if key software is delayed at the same time that the current hardware has aged so much.”

However, Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu urges calm in the article, suggesting that the dip is a good time for investors to buy shares in the company, given that Nintendo’s announcement of its next hardware will still happen at some point.

As reported last week, VGC has heard from multiple sources who said Nintendo has told publishers its next console will now launch in Q1 2025.

According to the sources, third-party game companies were recently briefed on an internal delay in Nintendo’s next-gen launch timing, from late 2024 to early the following year.

One publishing source suggested the delay was so that Nintendo could prepare stronger first-party software for the console.

It’s possible the next-gen Nintendo console will now follow a similar timeline to the Switch, which was released in March 2017 but announced the previous year (in October 2016).