Nintendo's already working on its next major video game console after the Switch

• Nintendo is already working on the console that will succeed its wildly popular Nintendo Switch.
• The company is still working out the console's concept and design, executives said this week.

Sorry, Nintendo Switch fans: Nintendo is already planning the wildly popular console's successor.

Details of the Nintendo's next game console, which the Japanese gaming giant referred to as its "20xx next-gen device" in its most recent investor presentation, are still being ironed out.

"We are still going through internal discussion on concept, timing, etc.," Nintendo executives told investors during a Q&A session, which was translated by gaming analyst David Gibson.

The execs also said that the Nintendo Switch is "in the middle phase" of its life cycle, with future sales buoyed by the recent Switch OLED model paired with major upcoming game releases. That prediction may come true, but sales of the Switch were down year over year.

Perhaps more critical: The Switch is about to be a 5-year-old gaming console as of next March.

Even the recently released Switch OLED model, with a larger and more vibrant screen, is powered by the same years-old gaming tech.

Nintendo's own history of game console launches undercuts its statement about the Switch life cycle.

Since 1983 with the original Nintendo Entertainment System and continuing through through to the Nintendo Switch in 2017, the company has released a new home game console just shy of every five years.

That doesn't include any of the handheld consoles and, if it did, it would actually increase the frequency of game console launches.

What's perhaps most supportive of Nintendo's statement, however, is that the company has yet to announce any formal plans for the Switch's successor - it was a full two years before the launch of the Switch that former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced vague plans for the "Nintendo NX."

This is critical, because game makers need time with new hardware to make games for it. Yet, thus far, there have been no credible rumors about Nintendo's next console - the kinds of leaks that would come from people outside of Nintendo getting their hands on prototype hardware.

What we know for sure, however, is that Nintendo plans to launch its next game console with the same "integrated hardware-software" approach it has taken in the past. What that means for you is that Nintendo is going to keep making game consoles (hardware), the operating system that powers them (software), and some of the best games for that console (software).

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