Nintendo delays release of a highly anticipated product due to major risk

It appears that Nintendo is paying very careful attention to some important details with the upcoming release of its highly anticipated gaming console Nintendo Switch 2.

So much so, the company has reportedly decided to delay the release of the product until March 2025 due to the potential of it facing the same major issue that botched Sony’s release of its Playstation 5 and Microsoft’s rollout of its Xbox Series X/S consoles in 2020, according to a new report from Japanese publication Nikkei.

A translated version of the report from Nikkei states that Nintendo delayed the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 due to the company prioritizing “taking measures to prevent resale and securing an initial stock of successor machines and an assortment of popular software from the time of release.”

The release of the Nintendo Switch 2, which is reportedly expected to have a larger screen than its predecessor and will allow users to play games in HD, was originally expected to be released sometime this year.

It is no surprise that Nintendo is taking extra precautions to beef up on stock of the upcoming console in an effort to prevent scalpers from purchasing the product en masse and reselling it for inflated prices as that very issue has caused major headwinds for its competitors.

On Nov. 10, 2020, Microsoft released its new gaming consoles Xbox Series X and Series S, which sold out within a few hours, leading some websites that were selling the product to crash due to high demand and limited stock. Scalpers also reportedly were selling the sold out products for over $1,000 shortly after they released.

An attendee plays a video game on a Nintendo Switch gaming console during the Tokyo Game Show on Sept. 21, 2023 in Chiba, Japan. Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images

Two days later, Sony’s PS5 was made available to purchase online, and it sold out within seconds. Many customers were outraged as they noticed that scalpers used bots to purchase the product in mass quantities which further ate away at the limited supply of consoles, leaving many customers empty-handed.

On top of the high demand for the Xbox Series X/S consoles and the PS5, they were all also limited in stock due to a global chip shortage which negatively affected the production of both products for several years.

Nintendo released its first Nintendo Switch in 2017, and the product is currently facing a decrease in sales. In its fourth-quarter earnings report for 2023, Nintendo revealed that hardware sales for the Switch decreased by 7.8% year-on-year. Software sales also declined by 4.7% year-on-year, and Nintendo believes that there won’t be any major improvements with sales of the product in the near future.

“As Nintendo Switch is entering its eighth year, we do not think it will be easy to maintain sales at the same level as in the past,” said Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa during a recent earnings call.