The Nintendo Switch 2 will be fully unveiled soon, with the special Direct show scheduled for April 2 and subsequent public hands-on events taking place all over the world. The rumor is that it might launch as soon as this June, which seems all the more likely after the news that nearly 400K units were shipped to North America in the month of January alone.
Just how much of a success is the Nintendo Switch 2 going to be, though? Analysts aren’t quite of the same mind in this regard. In a Bloomberg article published yesterday, Serkan Toto shared his bullish outlook:
They will sell boatloads of Nintendo Switch 2 in the first months in particular, almost regardless of the price. We can expect a great software lineup in year one, from new Mario Kart and 3D Mario after eight years to Pokémon Legends: Z-A and Metroid Prime 4. There will also be third-party support from day one, most probably including blockbusters like Call of Duty.
However, SuperData Research co-founder Joost van Dreunen has a different opinion on the subject. Van Dreunen, who sold SuperData Research to Nielsen in 2018 and is now the CEO of data intelligence firm Aldora (while also teaching at the NYU Stern School of Business), wrote in the freshly published ‘The 2025 State of Play on Games, Tech, and Media’ report:
No. The backward compatibility of the Nintendo Switch 2, combined with its relatively modest technical improvements, ensures a slower adoption curve, especially among cost-conscious consumers during the start of its new hardware cycle. It is expected to cost around $399 at launch.
In the report, van Dreunen shared a few more interesting opinions on the hottest games industry topics. As mentioned in this article’s headline, the analyst believes Game Pass will reach 50 million subscribers this year as consumers become more careful with their spending on video games and look for cheaper alternatives like that offered by Microsoft. He also reckons an ad-based tier will be added soon.
Speaking about the rising game costs, van Dreunen doesn’t think Rockstar and Take-Two will bump up the price of Grand Theft Auto VI to $100 as some have feared. However, he adds that there will be a myriad of incentives for the more expensive editions, which will cost up to $150-200. Additionally, van Dreunen expects GTA VI to generate a billion dollars in sales on launch day.
His last two predictions are less positive. The veteran analyst thinks that Ubisoft is about to be bought by private equity, which will trigger another wave of layoffs across the publisher’s many studios. The industry as a whole will suffer more layoffs, especially among the bigger studios, as they keep cutting in-development titles that aren’t projected to do well upon release.
