Yesterday, Nintendo surprised us all when it announced that Xenoblade Chronicles X would be making its way over to Switch in a swanky new 'Definitive Edition' package. For a sweet couple of minutes, our minds were focused on the Switch's 2025 line-up and the sheer mass of Monolith Soft RPG goodness that we'll soon have at our fingertips.
Ha, that was short-lived.
As we awoke to the sweet sound of our Alarmo this morning, our minds were back on 'Switch 2'. Why? Well, apart from the fact that we hadn't thought about Nintendo's next console for approximately three minutes, next week (5th November) is when Nintendo reveals its quarterly financial report, and the ensuing investor meeting has got some theorising that a preliminary hardware announcement might be around the corner. Sigh. Strap in, folks.
Let's start with the theory at hand, courtesy of Brazilian games journalist Pedro Henrique Lutti Lippe (the one who initially claimed that 'Switch 2' wouldn't be coming our way until 2025). In a recent YouTube livestream (via ExtremeTech), Lippe mused that next week's investor meeting might have created the perfect environment for Nintendo to reveal its next piece of hardware. According to Lippe's theory, the Big N has a window up until 1st November to showcase its new bit of kit and pre-empt any questions that might be thrown its way during the financial call.
This makes a bit of sense sense. Nintendo buttered up its investors before the Q4 meeting back in May with the reveal that a 'Switch 2' announcement is coming "this fiscal year". Rumours over the past few months have been claiming that hardware news is coming 'this week' ('No, this week. No, this week. No, thi-' ah, you get the picture), there's every chance that Nintendo could do the same before the November financial report and keep things peachy in money land.
As for that 1st November deadline, that mostly checks out, too. Nintendo tends to make its big announcements on Wednesdays or Thursdays; the OG Switch reveal came on 20th October 2016, which was a Thursday, and most Directs have landed mid-week in the years since. And with the Fiscal Year Ending March 2025 Six Months Earnings Release and an investor meeting looming next Tuesday, Nintendo might sneak in ahead of the curve and announce something on the closest mid-week day, Thursday 31st Oct. Wait, that's tomorrow!