Nintendo Says Switch 2 will be Released in 2025

Nintendo Says Switch 2 will be Released in 2025
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Nintendo Says Switch 2 will be Released in 2025

Nintendo Says Switch 2 will be Released in 2025

Japan's Nintendo (7974.T), will release the Switch 2 console, successor to its hit Switch device, this year, it said on Thursday.

The Kyoto-based gaming company did not release pricing for the new device and said it would provide more details at a Nintendo Direct event on April 2.

The company said that existing Switch software will be usable on the new device although some games may not be fully compatible.

Consumers and investors have been waiting for details of the new console, which appears to closely follow the playbook established by the hybrid home-portable Switch.

"The reveal did not have the punch of the original Switch," said Serkan Toto, founder of the Kantan Games consultancy, Reuters reported.

"What we saw is more like a 'Switch Pro' - an upgraded version that is bigger - than a Switch 2," he said, adding the launch will likely be after June.

The Switch transformed Nintendo's fortunes following the poor performance of the Wii U console, and has sold more than 145 million units.

Nintendo has extended the lifecycle of the Switch, which launched in 2017, with hardware refreshes and hit games from franchises such as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda.

The company has said it expects to sell 12.5 million units of the ageing Switch console in the financial year ending March.

"The Switch 2 is poised to reinvigorate hardware sales," Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a client note ahead of the announcement.

"Even if Nintendo builds up capacity to manufacture 15m Switch 2 for the year, the demand is likely to outstrip supply for several months/quarters," he added.

The Switch is the company's second best seller, topped only by the handheld Nintendo DS which sold 154 million units in total.

Nintendo is heavily dependent on its console business, even as it has opened stores and with its roster of characters featuring in theme parks and film.

Along with PlayStation maker Sony (6758.T), Japanese companies remain leading console providers, even as technology such as mobile and cloud offers alternatives for gaming.



Musk Says He’ll Withdraw $97.4 Billion Bid for OpenAI If ChatGPT Maker Remains Nonprofit

The OpenAI logo is seen in front of an Elon Musk photo in this illustration taken March 11, 2024. (Reuters)
The OpenAI logo is seen in front of an Elon Musk photo in this illustration taken March 11, 2024. (Reuters)
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Musk Says He’ll Withdraw $97.4 Billion Bid for OpenAI If ChatGPT Maker Remains Nonprofit

The OpenAI logo is seen in front of an Elon Musk photo in this illustration taken March 11, 2024. (Reuters)
The OpenAI logo is seen in front of an Elon Musk photo in this illustration taken March 11, 2024. (Reuters)

Elon Musk says he will abandon his $97.4 billion offer to buy the nonprofit behind OpenAI if the ChatGPT maker drops its plan to convert into a for-profit company.

“If OpenAI, Inc.’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” lawyers for the billionaire said in a filing to a California court on Wednesday.

“Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”

Musk and a group of investors made their offer earlier this week, in the latest twist to a dispute with the artificial intelligence company that he helped found a decade ago.

OpenAI is controlled by a nonprofit board bound to its original mission of safely building better-than-human AI for public benefit. Now a fast-growing business, it unveiled plans last year to formally change its corporate structure.

Musk and his own AI startup, xAI, and a consortium of investment firms want to acquire the nonprofit’s controlling stake in the for-profit OpenAI subsidiary. The purpose, they said, would be to revert it back to its original charitable mission as a nonprofit research lab.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly rejected the unsolicited bid in a post on social media and told questioners at a Paris summit on AI that the company is not for sale. The chair of OpenAI's board, Bret Taylor, echoed those remarks at an event Wednesday.

Musk and Altman helped start OpenAI in 2015 and later competed over who should lead it before Musk resigned from the board in 2018. They've been in a long-running and bitter feud over the startup.

Musk again criticized Altman's management on Thursday during a videocall to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, describing it as akin to a nonprofit aimed at saving the Amazon rainforest becoming a “lumber company that chops down the trees.”

Altman has repeatedly countered that Musk's legal challenges to OpenAI are motivated by his role as a competitor.

Musk has asked a California federal judge to block OpenAI's for-profit conversion on allegations ranging from breach of contract to antitrust violations. The judge has expressed skepticism about some of Musk's arguments but hasn't yet issued a ruling.