"Significant"
"quite some time"
I mean, if Nintendo wanted to kill the Switch momentum, this would be an effective way of doing it. Of course, this would have to be actually true too.
Don't want to post every tweet by this guy (and like I tried to sarcastically imply, I'm skeptical anyway), but he does elaborate in his mentions. Seems he is on the 'Switch 2 is not Drake' side of things (though there are other possibilities too).
This may be confirmation bias talking, but if Nintendo haven't informed retailers about any major releases in 2023 post-Zelda, honestly that makes me think it's
more likely that there's new hardware coming. Nintendo have a large number of internal studios (including quite a few studios who haven't released anything in several years), and they always have a steady stream of externally developed titles. I would be extremely surprised if they let the entire second half of a calendar year go by without any notable titles. I think it's more likely that they simply haven't informed retailers of these titles, which begs the question of why they would be so secretive with retailers on these games. Is it perhaps because they're designed to run on as-yet unannounced hardware? I may be overthinking it, of course, but honestly I wouldn't expect Nintendo to share details on a new model with retailers until as late as possible, as we know how careful they are about leaks.
The other thing I'd like to bring up, is the recurring logical fallacy of "Switch is selling well at the moment, so they won't release a new model soon". Nintendo (or Sony or MS) don't have the luxury of deciding when or how to release new console hardware based on
actual sales figures shortly before launch. Games consoles, particularly when they require a custom SoC (as Nintendo does) have to be planned and built based on
predicted sales patterns, years before they're launched. The specifications of the hardware, the technologies used, and the targeted launch window have to be decided 3 or more years before the launch, based on Nintendo's best predictions of when that new hardware is going to be needed.
In Nintendo's case, it appears they made this decision in late 2019 or early 2020. That is, they made the decision on the timing of the next model based on predictions made pre-COVID (or at least before the economic effects of COVID would have been known). To illustrate how difficult it would have been to predict Switch's current continued success at that time, consider that in FY21 (the financial year ending March 2021), Nintendo sold 28.83 million units of Switch hardware, a massive 37% increase over the previous year, and achieved a similar 37% YoY increase in software sales. However, in May 2020,
Nintendo were forecasting just 19 million Switch units to be sold in FY21. That's a 9.6%
decrease YoY, and they were forecasting a 17% YoY decrease in software sales as well. This is after Animal Crossing had released and when COVID lockdowns were in full swing. At the same time as this, do we think that Nintendo were predicting that, in 2022, Switch's sixth year, it would be outselling both Sony and MS's new consoles in their second years on the market?
While Switch's long-running success has surprised many, it also seems to have surprised Nintendo themselves. At the start of the last three financial years, they have forecasted YoY drops in both hardware and software sales for Switch. In FY21 (as above) they were expecting to be down 9.6% on hardware and 17% on software. In FY22, they
were expecting to drop 11.5% on hardware and 17.7% on software, and in FY23,
they forecast a 8.9% hardware drop and a 10.7% software drop. Part of this could be conservative forecasting, but it doesn't paint the picture of a company expecting the level of success the Switch has seen at this stage in its life. The forecasted drops in software sales are particularly notable, because usually they lag hardware sales, and are a much bigger indicator of the need for new hardware. For comparison, Sony (who measure software sales differently from Nintendo)
were still seeing very healthy software sales on PS4 in the lead-up to the launch of the PS5, even as hardware sales dropped.
Furthermore, although this is purely speculation, I suspect that with only one hardware line, Nintendo will now be more conservative with when they release new hardware. That is, they will err on the side of possibly releasing their new hardware too early, rather than risk releasing it too late and having the audience disappear by the time their new hardware is out. They can no longer hedge their bets between separate lines of console and handheld hardware, allowing failures on one side to be propped up by successes on the other. Their entire business is the Switch, and hence their entire business hinges on how they handle the successor to it, so I'd expect them to be more risk-averse than they were in the past when releasing new hardware, including avoiding the risk of leaving that hardware too late.
Edit: To add to this, I thought I'd take a look at the lifespan of previous Nintendo consoles to see what the typical hardware lifecycle is for a console in Nintendo's eyes. Here's every Nintendo home console, the date it was released (in the first region), and the number of days it was on the market until they released the next generation:
NES - 1983-07-15 - 2686d
SNES - 1990-11-21 - 2041d
N64 - 1996-06-23 - 1909d
GC - 2001-09-14 - 1892d
Wii - 2006-11-19 - 2191d
Wii U - 2012-11-18 - 1566d
Switch - 2017-03-03 - 2086d (current)
Switch has already outlived the SNES, N64, Gamecube and Wii U. If we get to 3rd of March 2023 without new generation hardware launching, it will become Nintendo's longest-living home console since the NES. If we reach 10th of July 2024 without new generation hardware, then Switch will become their longest-living home console ever.
If we want to consider Switch against the handheld lines, we have:
GB - 1989-04-21 - 3470d
GBC - 1998-10-21 - 882d
GBA - 2001-03-21 - 1341d
DS - 2004-11-21 - 2288d
3DS - 2011-02-26 - 2197d
Switch - 2017-03-03 - 2086d (current)
Switch has outlived the GBC and GBA (not that either one stuck around for that long), and if new hardware doesn't appear it will overtake the 3DS on 9th March 2023 and the DS on 8th June 2023. In the unlikely event that it overtakes the original GB, that would take until 2nd of September 2026 (or 31st January 2029 if you count GBC as part of the GB generation).
A six-year life cycle for Switch before the successor hardware releases (ie a H1 2023 launch) would put it in line with their longest living hardware released in the past 30 years. Conversely, a 7 and a half year life cycle (ie a H2 2024 launch) would blow past any recent hardware and make it their longest living home console ever. I have no doubt now that Switch could last until late 2024, however I would be surprised if, back in early 2020, Nintendo were willing to bet the farm on it becoming by far the longest living hardware they've released since the 80s.