In a new press release from audio electronics company Altec Lansing, it was revealed that GameShark is returning, sort of via an artificial intelligence-powered successor called “AI Shark” You don’t care about that. Instead, the big news out of this press release is that it might have leaked the release date for the Nintendo Switch 2.
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As spotted by Digital Trends on January 11, Altec Lansing’s press release announcing a GameShark AI successor thing contains this sentence seemingly (and casually) revealing that the Switch 2 might be out in September.
The official launch is planned to coincide with the Nintendo Switch 2 in September 2024.
In a follow-up comment provided to Digital Trends, Altec Lansing said that Nintendo has not yet picked a specific month for the Switch 2’s release, but added that it has a tentative launch window of “Fall 2024.” Weirdly, Altec Lansing didn’t deny the existence of the console or backtrack on the reveal that it might launch this year.
Update 01/11/2024 at 1:50 p.m. EST: Digital Trends received a second statement from Altec Lansing and AI Shark, the company backtracked again, saying the Fall 2024 window too wasn’t official and added that Nintendo has yet to “officially” announce any Switch 2 launch plans.
Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo and Altec Lansing.
It should be noted that while it is possible Altec Lansing, GameShark, and the folks involved in this weird, vaguely defined AI successor known as AI Shark might be privy to confidential information about the Switch 2, it’s more likely that the company is guessing and just tossing this guess into a press release to get more people talking about something that, otherwise, would have been ignored.
It’s a bold (and probably not very smart) move though, as Nintendo is likely not going to be amused by this and was likely already not happy about a whole different AI mess involving Mario that happened earlier this week at CES 2024.
According to Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, an AI Shark spokesperson reportedly told him that the company is totally guessing about the Switch 2’s release date.
So yeah, it’s possible the Switch 2 or whatever Nintendo’s next console ends up being called could launch later this year. Maybe even in September. But it’s very unlikely that AI Shark/GameShark knew that and leaked the information in a boring press release about an AI thing nobody else cares about.
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