In its 7th year, Nintendo is reportedly planning to increase Switch production

videogameschronicle.com:

Nintendo is reportedly planning to increase Switch production to meet continued demand for the ageing console.

Last November, the Japanese company reduced its Switch sales forecast for the current fiscal year ending in March 2023 by two million units, from 21 million to 19 million.

However, according to Bloomberg, strong consumer demand coupled with diminishing component shortages has encouraged the company to actually increase production of the console in its next fiscal year beginning  April, by which time Switch will have entered its seventh year on the market.

Switch was the best-selling console in Europe, the United States and Japan in 2022, and Nintendo reportedly believes adoption has been hampered more by supply issues than waning demand.

Nintendo said last May that the eventual transition from Switch to its next hardware platform was “a major focus” for the company, but its plans to reportedly increase Switch production in its next fiscal year suggest a successor to the console might not launch before 2024.

Piers Harding-Rolls, research director at Ampere Analysis, recently predicted that Nintendo’s next console won’t arrive this year. “I’m not expecting a next-gen Nintendo console in 2023: we have 2024 in our forecasts,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.

Harding-Rolls said on Friday that if Bloomberg’s report is correct, it would appear to back up his belief that a next-gen console won’t arrive this year, but said he was doubtful Switch sales would actually grow.

“No doubt that Switch OLED will be in strong demand at new Zelda launch and a good % of buyers will be those upgrading from OG Switch or Lite,” he tweeted. “Even so, the idea that Switch will increase sales next FY is optimistic If true, pretty much confirms our