Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa announced on Tuesday that lifetime sales of the Switch had exceeded 132.46 million units, and declined to comment on the company’s plans for its next console.
This means the Switch will need just over 21 million units to become Nintendo’s best-selling hardware in history, surpassing the Nintendo DS’s 154 million units. The only non-Nintendo console that surpassed the Nintendo Switch was the PlayStation 2 (155m).
Nintendo reported operating income of 94.5 billion yen and sales of 334.9 billion yen for the three months ended September 30, both of which exceeded analysts’ expectations. bloomberg.
Most of Nintendo’s revenue comes from overseas, so the current weak yen has helped.
Nintendo kept its hardware sales forecast unchanged at 15 million units, but announced that it would increase its software sales forecast by 5 million units to 185 million units.
Mr. Furukawa is said to have said in a conference call after the financial results announcement, “Switches are different from past hardware.” “It has the power to create all kinds of new demand.”
The Switch is currently in its sixth year of release, and there are expectations that Nintendo could release a successor as early as next year.
Best-selling Switch games
*As of September 30, 2023 (compared to June 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)
- The 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)
- Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – 23.23m (+0.57)
- Super Mario Party – 19.66m (+0.27m)
- The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears – 19.5m (+0.99m)
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 16.7 (+0.53m)
Despite its history, Nintendo sold more Switch consoles (+2.4%) and games (+1.8%) in the first six months of its fiscal year than in the same period last year. Japan accounted for 31.87% of hardware sales, higher than North America (29.67%) and Europe (22.95%).
This is an unusually strong performance for a game console that has reached the end of its lifespan. However, switch hardware sales are clearly down, and sales are actually down year-over-year, especially in major markets outside of Japan.
Nintendo’s Switch sales last year (17.97 million units) decreased by 22% compared to the previous year, and if it reaches this year’s target of 15 million units, it will decrease by another 16.5%.
According to Nintendo, this year’s software sales were driven by major titles such as “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” and the release of the movie “Super Mario Bros.” also had a positive impact on Mario game sales. It is said that 5 million copies were sold.
Nintendo shipped 2.93 million Switch consoles in the past three months, bringing the total for the first half of 2024 to 6.84 million units. The breakdown is 1.25 million units of Nintendo Switch, 4.69 million units of Nintendo Switch – OLED model, and 900,000 units of Nintendo Switch Lite.
In software, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold another million copies to reach lifetime sales of 19.5 million, and the new Pikmin 4 sold 2.61 million in its first six weeks of release. This period does not include the release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which released in October and set franchise launch records in multiple territories.
“In terms of hardware, by continuing to convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch, we aim to have not just one Nintendo Switch per family, but several Nintendo Switches per family, and even one per person,” Nintendo said in a forecast statement.
“Another goal is to continually release new products so that more consumers can keep playing Nintendo Switch for longer and maximize hardware sales. In October, we released “Super Mario Bros. Wonder,” the first completely new game in the “Super Mario Bros.” series in about 11 years.
Detective Pikachu Returns was released in the same month, and more titles are planned for the holiday season, including WarioWare Move It! “Super Mario RPG” (both scheduled to be released in November). In addition, “Indigo Disc”, the second part of the additional content “Treasure of Area Zero” for Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet, is scheduled to be released in December.