This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation.
Switch 2 will be announced in July/August then released in September. (This is speculation).
It needs to come out before Christmas, else Nintendo sales will suffer. They would have already planned for this. If they don’t they will announce it October/November quietly and release it in Spring.
I think they will increase the frequency of upgrades to their handheld/hybrid consoles. As they will see completion from steam deck and similar systems. Especially if they don’t have significant innovation that isn’t easily replicated. The switch 2 might not allow you to transfer all your games over, but subsequent switches are likely to be oled/light/pro/XL type of upgrades.
Switch launched in March despite the dire state of Wii U-era Nintendo.
There wasn’t much loss launching it after Christmas. People weren’t buying WiiUs. The 2ds was designed to use all the extra wiiU controller screens they had.