During a shareholder meeting, Nintendo discussed its plans in regards to next-gen consoles and how it plans to migrate users over. Nintendo did not give any concrete information on the specs or what users can expect. But it plans on using Nintendo Accounts to facilitate the move. The full Q&A is available on Nintendo’s website. [Thanks, Game Watch!]
To start with, CEO Shuntaro Furukawa explained that hardware used to be the only way for the company to connect with its player base. So upgrading hardware required them to rebuild the relationship with users. But now, there are so many people with Nintendo Accounts that they can use over multiple Nintendo consoles. Upgrading from the Switch to the next-gen will make heavy use of the online Nintendo Account.
In another question, someone asked if Nintendo plans on making Switch titles transferable to the new console. Not being able to do so from the Wii U to the Switch was a point of frustration. However, Furukawa did not directly answer this question. He instead noted that it will still sell consoles that can play hard-copy games rather than shift entirely to digital. The response also implied that the next generation Nintendo console will be far off in the future, since games like Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold so well. It wants players to continue enjoying the current selection of games through DLC and such.
The Nintendo Switch is a highly popular console. In May 2023, Nintendo announced that it had sole over 125 million units of it worldwide, making it the third best-selling console of all time.
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