The Nintendo Switch OLED Splatoon 3 Edition will be the only new Nintendo console to be released during the 2022-23 financial year if the latest reports are to be believed. A recent interview with the Nintendo President seemed to squash all current rumors of the appearance of a new Nintendo Switch model before the end of March 2023.
There will be no new Nintendo Switch hardware for 2022
Nikkei: there will be no new Nintendo hardware this fiscal year, which ends in March 2023. Not immediately clear whether that part of the article is from Nikkei's own reporting or what Nintendo President, who Nikkei interviewed for the story, said. https://t.co/HJVqk9Kbef
— Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) August 4, 2022
The reports that there will not be any new Nintendo console hardware before the end of March 2023 come from an interview with the Nintendo President by Nikkei, as translated by Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki. Unfortunately, it’s not clear whether this is a direct comment from the Nintendo President or whether this was additional reporting by Nikkei themselves, hence why we’re calling it an unconfirmed report right now. Of course, the claim ignores the Nintendo Switch OLED Splatoon 3 Edition that is due to be released later this month, although it does seem to squash all of the hopes players had for the Nintendo Switch 2 to be released soon, though.
The news comes shortly after Nintendo announced they had sold 111.08 million Switch consoles since its launch in March 2017, with 3.43 million of those sold between April and June 2022 alone. However, Switch console sales dropped by 22.9% compared to this time last year thanks to “the effects of supply shortages in semiconductors and other components among other factors.” As such, the company’s sales did drop by 4.7% to $2.3 billion as console supplies failed to meet demand, which “remains stable in all regions.” Nintendo will be hoping the Splatoon 3 OLED Switch goes some way to meeting the demand, causing an uptick for those sales figures.
In other news, Xbox Game Pass is testing a family plan in limited markets. Elsewhere, the latest update for Xbox Series S dev kits has allowed developers to use more RAM.
