Nintendo confirms Switch 2 will be backwards compatible

Switch games will be compatible with the forthcoming follow-up to Nintendo's popular but long-in-tooth portable console. But company president Shuntaro Furukawa offered few further details about the new system in his statement, beyond reiterating that the Switch 2 will be announced by March 2025.

"This is Furukawa," he wrote on social media. "At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch."

GamesIndustry.biz head Chris Dring reported that developers close to the company had been told not to expect a new hardware launch until at least April or May.

"I don't think any of us wants a late launch for Switch 2 because we all want a new Nintendo console, everyone gets very excited for it, and we don't want that crunch of Grand Theft Auto 6 and Switch and all that kind of stuff on top of each other," he said on a podcast in August.

Sales of the Switch are slowing in the meantime, reports Reuters, causing Nintendo to cut its operating product forecast for the year.

"The Kyoto-based gaming company sold 4.7 million Switch consoles in the first half of the financial year, down from 6.8 million units in the same period a year earlier," Kiyoshi Takenaka wrote. "Nintendo lowered its full-year sales forecast for the console, which is in its eighth year on the market, by 7% to 12.5 million units. That would be down 20% from actual Switch sales of 15.7 million units a year earlier."

Even before then, the Switch had already sold 143 million units in its eight-year lifetime and this Christmas may see it become the most successful game console of all time—a title currently held by Sony's PlayStation 2, with 155 million units sold worldwide. Nintendo's own DS handheld runs a close second at 154 million sold.

Previously:
• Doom for Nintendo Alarmo
• My daughter and I share a Nintendo Switch
• Nintendo games run better on other hardware