Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa declined to comment on plans for the corporate’s subsequent console on Tuesday, as it introduced Switch has now cleared 132.46 million lifetime gross sales.
This means Switch has simply over 21 million models to go if it’s to grow to be Nintendo’s best-selling {hardware} ever, beating Nintendo DS‘s 154m. Outside of Nintendo’s consoles, solely PlayStation 2 (155m) has outsold Nintendo Switch.
During the three months till September 30, Nintendo reported working revenue of 94.5 billion yen and income of 334.9 billion yen, which have been each up on analysts’ expectations, in accordance to Bloomberg.
The present weak spot of the yen helped this, as a result of most of Nintendo’s earnings come from abroad.
Nintendo stored its {hardware} gross sales forecast the identical at 15 million however mentioned it was elevating its software program gross sales outlook by 5 million models to 185 million.
“The Switch is different from past hardware,” Furukawa reportedly mentioned in a convention name after the earnings launch. “It has the ability to give rise to different kinds of new demand.”
Switch is now in its sixth yr on the market, and the expectation is that Nintendo may launch a successor console as quickly as subsequent yr.
THE BEST-SELLING SWITCH GAMES
*As of September 30, 2023 (in contrast to Jun 2023)
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 57.01m (+1.55m)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 43.38m (+0.59m)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 32.44m (+0.67m)
- Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 31.15m (+0.5m)
- Super Mario Odyssey – 26.95m (+0.51m)
- Pokemon Sword/Shield – 26.02m (+0.1m)
- Pokémon Scarlet & Violet – 23.23m (+0.57)
- Super Mario Party – 19.66m (+0.27m)
- Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 19.5m (+0.99m)
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 16.7 (+0.53m)
Despite its age, Nintendo has offered extra Switch consoles (+2.4%) and video games (+1.8%) within the first six months of its fiscal yr than it did in the identical interval final yr. 31.87% of these {hardware} gross sales have been in Japan, greater than North America (29.67%) and Europe (22.95%).
This is unusually robust efficiency for a console reaching the top of its lifespan. However, Switch {hardware} gross sales are clearly in decline, particularly within the main markets exterior of Japan, the place gross sales truly decreased year-on-year.
In Nintendo’s final fiscal yr, Switch gross sales (17.97m) declined by 22% in contrast to the earlier yr, and if it reaches its present goal of 15m for this yr, that may signify an additional decline of 16.5%.
Nintendo says this yr’s software program gross sales have been pushed by main releases like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, whereas the discharge of The Super Mario Bros. Movie additionally had a optimistic impression on Mario recreation gross sales, with 5 million sellers to this point this yr.
Nintendo shipped 2.93m Switch consoles throughout the three months, making for a complete of 6.84m for the primary half of FY24. This breaks down to 1.25 million models of Nintendo Switch, 4.69 million models of Nintendo Switch – OLED Model, and 0.90 million models of Nintendo Switch Lite.
In software program, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom offered an additional a million models to attain lifetime gross sales of 19.5m, whereas the brand new launch Pikmin 4 debuted with gross sales of 2.61m in its first six weeks of availability. This interval doesn’t embody the discharge of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which was launched in October and set franchise launch data in a number of territories.
“For hardware, by continuing to convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch, we try not only to put one system in every home, but several in every home, or even one for every person,” Nintendo mentioned in its forecast assertion.
“Another goal is to frequently launch new choices so extra shoppers preserve enjoying Nintendo Switch even longer and we are able to maximize {hardware} gross sales. For software program, we launched Super Mario Bros. Wonder in October as the primary solely new installment within the side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. sequence in nearly 11 years.
“In that very same month we launched Detective Pikachu Returns, and heading into the vacation season we plan to launch extra titles, together with WarioWare: Move It! and Super Mario RPG (each set for launch in November). In addition, The Indigo Disk, the second a part of The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero add -on content material for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, is scheduled for launch in December.”
