Switch is in the middle of its life cycle, Nintendo president says

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa reiterates the Switch is still in the middle of its life cycle, hinting the console will last at least four more years before a new iteration arrives.

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In a recent Nintendo Q&A session from its FY2020 financials, Nintendo President Shuntaro confirms the Switch is halfway through its lifespan. The Switch turned four years old and managed to move over 55 million units to date, so the Switch hardware family should continue on for another four more years.

"Nintendo Switch has just entered the middle of its life cycle, and there are two system versions in the family - Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite - so we have not changed our view that it is possible to aim for growth that is unlike the life cycle of any other hardware to date," Mr. Furukawa said, strongly hinting more Switch hardware iterations are on the way.

"We also see this as an environment where we can continue to release software by focusing resources on software development for Nintendo Switch."

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Read Also:Nintendo profits up 33% to $2.37 billion as Switch sales surge

There's been lots of clues that Nintendo will follow Sony and Microsoft with incrementally more powerful and transformative systems in an iterative cycle. In 2019, the Switch family evolved with the handheld-only Switch Lite. Will the hardware ecosystem grow even more with the often-rumored 4K-ready Switch Pro? Possibly.

We predicted way back in 2016 that Nintendo could supercharge the base Switch with a Supplemental Computing Device, a special box that hooks up to a Switch dock to boost CPU performance via cloud connectivity.

We also predicted that Nintendo could take this a step farther and bake in a GPU and CPU combo into the new SCD add-on to transform a base Switch handheld-console hybrid into a beefier machine. Think of it as a dock upgrade versus an actual Switch upgrade.

The Nintendo president also says the company will spend more on advertising and marketing for the Switch.

"We consider advertising to be a very important activity for building awareness of our products. Especially now that Nintendo Switch has entered the middle of its life cycle, it is important to pursue activities that also create better awareness of our products for people who do not normally play games. We believe that we will potentially reach a situation in which we need to spend more for advertising now than we did when the hardware was first launched."