The Nintendo Switch 2 was officially announced this week, but one analyst we spoke to doesn't think it will reach the same heights as its predecessor.
“Switch 2 can (and I hope it will) be a big hit. But I don't expect it to come to Switch either. It's hard to predict an outlier. It could happen, but it's not likely,” Mat Piscatella, Circana games lead, tells us .
“It's great that it feels like a bigger, more powerful Switch. Fantastic. Exactly what people wanted and expected,” he continues. “But it also appears to be primarily a larger, more powerful Switch, which may not be enough to attract an audience outside of buyers of the original Switch.”
For Switch fans, the Switch 2 is great, but Piscatella is right that there doesn't seem to be much to sway skeptics. Unless, of course, The apparent Joy-Con mouse mode It is useful for genres like RTS and FPS.
Nintendo Switch 2: first trailer – YouTube
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So what does Piscatella think of the new console? “In a word, it's fine,” he tells us. “On paper, the Switch 2 name and its larger, more powerful approach are a very smart, low-risk way to bring it to market. The naming convention makes it clear that this is a successor to the Switch, and anyone watching will know what is it.”
While Sony has opted for successive numbers for its consoles and Microsoft has opted for unique names, Nintendo has tended to do a mix. GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, then GameBoy Advance SP, or DS, DSi, and 3DS are clearly iterations of each other, but this will be the first time the company has opted for a standard numerical signifier.
“The biggest challenge ('a good problem') is that Switch has been a huge success,” Piscatella explains. “It's an outlier in many ways, including how much it has sold and how long it has been selling. Some of the games that were released for it are, years later, still among the best-selling games every month.”
Nintendo sold over a billion games on the original Switch, which is an astronomical number, and also the reason why another analyst considered backward compatibility for the Switch 2 to be “almost inevitable.”
“Can a successor who doesn't significantly change the formula really have a chance to repeat or extend that level of success,” Piscatella asks? “Well, it is possible, but not likely. Growth in countries and regions where Switch did not have as large a presence as, for example, Japan or the United States, is very important. It is essential to have a solid list of first-party and third-party content. “Third party support sure wouldn't hurt (although people generally buy Nintendo hardware to play Nintendo games), but to match or surpass the success of the Switch, there have to be some surprises, and a little luck wouldn't hurt either.”
We saw gameplay footage of a new Mario Kart game in the Switch 2 reveal trailer, and we may also get some Hollow Knight: Silksong news in the Direct if some hints from the developers are anything to go by.
“Finding growth since the video game market peak of 2020-2021 has been a difficult task for everyone,” explains Piscatella. “At that time, the most people were playing the most hours and spending the most money. Because of course they were. And the Switch also got a big boost during that period.”
It's going to be a tough time for all consoles going forward as industry growth has slowed since the COVID boom of 2020, so don't be surprised if the Switch 2 doesn't sell as many units as its predecessor.
For more news, check out our Nintendo Switch 2 Highlights which will keep you updated with the latest news.