Next-Gen Nintendo Console Coming Late 2024, Report Says

A new report has shed more light on the video game industry landscape as it relates to the overall size and health of the market, and in particular, it claims the PlayStation 5 is expected to increase its lead over the Xbox Series X|S in the time to come. The report also suggests the next Nintendo hardware platform will launch in 2024.

Ampere Analysis said in a note that PlayStation 5 has reached 30 million units sold as of the end of 2022, compared to 18.5 million for the Xbox Series X|S. Sony publishes new PS5 sales figures every three months, but Microsoft no longer shares Xbox sales numbers, so it's unclear where, exactly, Ampere is getting its information from beyond its own estimates.

In any event, Ampere pointed out that both the PS5 and Xbox Series X faced supply issues in 2022, but the Series S was more readily available. This allowed Xbox to take advantage of Sony's supply chain issues and gain a little marketshare.

However, PS5 supply has since rebounded significantly, and because of this, Ampere said it expects the gap between PS5 and Xbox Series X|S sales to widen in the first half of 2023.

Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S aren't anywhere close to the Nintendo Switch, which sold more than 122.5 million units as of December 31, 2022. The report went on to say that a next-generation Nintendo console will launch "towards the end of 2024," but that's all it had to say.

There have been rumors of a more powerful Switch percolating for a long time now, but Nintendo has never confirmed this. Nintendo has, however, confirmed that it will launch a new console before the year 2100. Nintendo launched a new Switch Lite model in 2019 and an OLED model in October 2021, but fans never got the rumored Switch "pro" model.

For 2022 overall, on a global scale, total spending on video games dropped by 7.8% year-over-year to $56.2 billion, according to Ampere's report. The company said the delay of "major game releases" to 2023 and a lack of availability for the PS5 and Xbox Series X impacted overall results. While year-over-year sales may have fallen, Ampere pointed out that spending on video games globally was up 18% compared to pre-pandemic levels from 2019.