With talk of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 absolutely dominating the gaming news cycle over the last few weeks, some eyes shifted over to Nintendo, wondering what plans were for its next console.
Nintendo has been sitting pretty on the Nintendo Switch, having sold upwards of 60 million units of its revolutionary gaming system that switches from television console to handheld device with ease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5uik5fgIaI&t=76s
During a recent corporate management briefing, Nintendo revealed that it is working on new hardware, before jokingly stating that the new Nintendo console will be available sometime in this century.
They then showed a slide which stated that the next Nintendo gaming system would launch sometime in “20xx.”
That means sometime before the year 2100.
Obviously, Nintendo doesn’t need a full 80 years to create a new console. This was more of a tongue in cheek way of stating that yes, they are working on a new console and no, they’re not ready to talk about it yet.
What’s interesting to note is that in Nintendo’s Future Outlook graphic, they make note of the DS, the Wii, and the Switch, but completely ignored the disastrous Nintendo Wii-U, which was sort of a midway point evolution between the Wii and the Switch.
While there is no new Nintendo console on the horizon, it is expected that an enhanced version of the Switch could be coming sometime in 2021.
The average lifecycle of a Nintendo console lasts somewhere between five and six years. However, when it comes to the Switch, Nintendo has stated that it believes the current console might be on the market for longer than that.
That would put a new system out sometime after 2023 at the earliest.
The Switch has achieved great success as a console, recently passing both the Super Nintendo and the original Nintendo Entertainment System in terms of sales.
It is still lagging behind the Nintendo 3DS family, the Game Boy Advance, the Wii, the original Game Boy/Game Boy Color, and the Nintendo DS family.
The DS and Game Boy are actually the second and third highest selling game devices of all time. The only device to surpass them in terms of sales is the PlayStation 2. The Game Boy still has about eight million more consoles sold that the PlayStation 4, which holds the fourth place spot.
It’s unlikely that the PS4 will ever catch up to the 1989 Nintendo handheld console, as it is nearing the end of its lifecycle with the upcoming release of the PlayStation 5 this November.
