Nintendo shares have fallen by eight per cent after developers were told the company was pushing back the launch of its Switch successor to the beginning of next year.
The release of the Nintendo Switch 2 has reportedly been delayed until 2025
It was claimed on Saturday (17.02.24) that the new console was now delayed until "March 2025 at the earliest" despite having been slated for a release in autumn of 2024 and now Bloomberg has reported a significant fall in the company's shares following the news.
Mio Kato of LightStream Research, said: "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. 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."
Following initial reports, Eurogamer claimed it had also heard "similar whispers" of a delay from various sources and whilst Nintendo is yet to confirm or deny the rumours, it was recently claimed that the next iteration of the console will to suffer a screen downgrade, according to an analyst.
In a report from Omida analysts Hiroshi Hayase, the Japanese tech company’s next iteration of the console is due to release this year with an eight-inch LCD screen rather than an OLED. An OLED screen allows each pixel to work independently of one another, allowing for accurate colour reproduction and a more vibrant viewing experience compared to an LCD.
The report also suggested that Osaka-based Sharp Corp., who had assembled Switches for Nintendo during the Covid pandemic, had been supplying LCD panels and was working closely with the manufacturer of an upcoming console.
It had also been claimed that the first wave of the Nintendo Switch 2 could have 10 million units worldwide, with the analyst pointing to the high number of consoles the Japanese company was aiming to ship being why it had chosen a lower cost display, as well as to circumvent stock issues that have recently been seen in the industry, including the launch of Sony’s PlayStation 5.
The report adds to the frustration surrounding the new console, as it has previously been claiming that the Nintendo Switch 2 would launch with a $400 price tag, which would be $100 more than the Nintendo Switch OLED.