Nintendo released yearly financial information last night and, as we pore over it, one statement during the earnings call from the company’s president Shuntaro Furukawa stuck out. According to Furukawa, despite rumors of a Switch revision swirling in certain circles, the company isn’t going to be using E3 to show any new hardware off.
“As a general rule, we’re always working on new hardware and we will announce it when we are able to sell it,” Furukawa said to investors according to a translation from Bloomberg. “But we have no plans to announce that at this year’s E3 in June.”
The phrasing is key, because Furukawa all but says new hardware is coming, but he specifically says don’t look to E3 for it. The Kyoto-based first party has not used the annual gaming showcase for hardware reveals since the (some would say disastrous) reveal of the Wii U in 2011 and 2012’s shows. Since then, 3DS revisions were given their own Nintendo Directs or simple press releases, while the Switch itself was livestreamed via Nintendo’s own channels toward the end of 2016.
Should Nintendo have a Switch revision on the way, which they are definitely not denying, it could come as abruptly as a video released on YouTube out of nowhere. Or it could be in the middle of a Nintendo Direct where the company controls the message as much as possible. There is also the danger of scheduling reveals around E3, where announcing a revision too early dries up sales from people willing to buy the Switch but then deciding to hold off for as many months as it takes.
Regardless, Nintendo has yet to actually officially announce E3 plans beyond Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 2 tournaments, so their E3 show is still a big question mark at the moment, even if we know what it won’t include.
