Nintendo has lowered its sales forecast for Nintendo Switch by 1 million units, after reporting a 31% year-on-year sales drop.
In its latest earnings report for the three months ended Sept. 30, the Switch company said it had lowered its hardware sales forecast to 12.5 million for the fiscal year, down from 13.5 million, and lowered its outlook. operating profit by 10% (360 billion yen). 2.4 billion dollars).
Nintendo partly attributed the decline in hardware sales to a strong first half of the previous fiscal year, when the Super Mario Bros. movie boosted game sales and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released.
“There were no such special factors in the first half of this fiscal year,” he said, “and with Nintendo Switch now in its eighth year since its launch, unit sales of both hardware and software declined significantly year over year.”
The Switch is now more than seven years old and Nintendo has said it will announce its successor console before the end of March 2025.
The company’s results for the first half of its current fiscal year report an operating profit of ¥121.5 billion ($798 million), representing a decline of 56.6% compared to the same period last year.
The company confirmed that it sold 4.72 million Switch consoles during the first half of the fiscal year, bringing the hardware’s all-time sales total to 146.04 million. The Switch has to exceed 154 million (Nintendo DS) and at least 160 million (PS2) to become the best-selling console in history.
In software (spanning April to September), Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door, released in May, sold 1.94 million units, while Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, released in June, sold 1.57 million units. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which launched in late September, sold 2.58 million units in its first few days.
Moving forward, the company released Super Mario Party Jamboree in October and plans to release Mario & Luigi: Brothership this week, followed by Donkey Kong Country Returns HD in January and a port of Xenoblade Chronicles X in March.
Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Tokyo-based gaming industry consultancy Kantan Games, told VGC that with a weaker software lineup than in previous years, the decline in sales of older Switch hardware was inevitable.
THE BEST SELLING SWITCH GAMES
*As of September 31, 2024 (compared to June 2024)
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 65.27 m (+1.37 m)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 46.45 m (+0.60 m)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: 35.14 m (+0.48 m)
- Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 32.29 m (+0.24 m)
- Super Mario Odyssey – 28.50 m (+0.29 m)
- Pokémon Sword/Shield: 26.44 m (+0.09 m)
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: 25.69 m (+0.4 m)
- Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 21.04 million (+0.24 million)
- Super Mario Party: 20.98 m (+0.14 m)
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 17.77 (+0.16 million)
“Anyone who has followed Nintendo this year can’t be too surprised by the results,” he said. “We’re in a hit-driven business – without blockbusters, you can’t make sales that really move the needle for a company like Nintendo.
“It’s understandable that the company is keeping the big hitters for the next console, but I think even their adjusted forecast is still too optimistic. Look at the first quarter of 2025, for example, which only has one somewhat major release with Donkey Kong Country Returns HD.”
Toto said the only positive surprise it could see was the jump in Nintendo’s digital sales, which increased from 50.2% to 56.3% year-on-year, contributing to an increase in its gross profit margin of 1.5%.
