NintendObs Thinks: In defense of a longer Nintendo Switch lifecycle.
Developers don't need more power to come up with better ideas. They just need more time.
I know this is a controversial stance to take since I know how much people want to see Nintendo’s successor to Nintendo Switch, Nintendo’s equivalent to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. I know it all too well. But for the sake of argument, I’d rather take Nintendo’s statements at face value when they declared in 2021 that Nintendo Switch, after having clocked more than four years on the market, is only going through the middle of its lifecycle. You’ve first heard it from Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser on Nintendo Power Podcast #40 at E3 2021, and then from Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa in the November 2021 Q&A for Nintendo’s Six Months Financial Results Briefing for the Fiscal Year Ending March 2022.
Nintendo has already announced games and DLCs to that effect that are meant to keep Nintendo Switch rocking for at least a year or two guaranteed, for now. Take Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s Booster Course Pass for example, for which Nintendo will support their best-selling Nintendo Switch title ever all the way to the end of 2023. Or take the upcoming launch of Splatoon 3 this September 9, a game Nintendo is sure to update just like its prequel for a good two years at least, deep into 2024. Not to mention probable and impending DLCs for Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Splatoon 3 of course and the Spring 2023 release of the Sequel to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild.
Relying on Nintendo word-for-word, if the company’s two top brass say in 2021 that the console they launched in 2017 is at the middle of its lifecycle, that means the plan at this time internally is to replace the whole platform in 2025. But even that is subject to change, with Nintendo announcing the creation their “Corporate Headquarters Development Center, Building No. 2” (tentative name) set to open in December 2027. Developed with the purpose of R&D reinforcement, comprised of approximatively 38,000 square meters of floor area within close to 72 meters of height for a 12-floor steel framed building, Nintendo if the opportunity arises could even play the clock all the way to that moment more than five years from now when they’ll have all the resources they could need in place to steamroll into their own next generation.