Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa avoided discussing the company’s plans for its next console on Tuesday, as it revealed that the Switch has reached a lifetime sales milestone of 132.46 million units.
This means that the Switch needs to sell just over 21 million more units in order to surpass the Nintendo DS, which holds the record for best-selling Nintendo hardware at 154 million units. The only console to have outsold the Switch outside of Nintendo’s lineup is the PlayStation 2, with 155 million units sold.
For the three-month period ending on September 30, Nintendo reported an operating profit of 94.5 billion yen and revenue of 334.9 billion yen. These figures exceeded analysts’ expectations, according to Bloomberg.
This strong performance was partially due to the current weakness of the yen, as a majority of Nintendo’s earnings come from overseas.
Although Nintendo maintained its hardware sales forecast at 15 million units, it raised its software sales outlook to 185 million units, an increase of 5 million units.
“The Switch is different from past hardware,” Furukawa reportedly stated during a conference call following the earnings release. “It has the ability to create new types of demand.”
The Switch is currently in its sixth year on the market, prompting speculation that Nintendo may release a successor console as early as next year.
THE BEST-SELLING SWITCH GAMES
*As of September 30, 2023 (compared to June 2023)
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 57.01 million units (+1.55 million)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 43.38 million units (+0.59 million)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 32.44 million units (+0.67 million)
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 31.15 million units (+0.5 million)
- Super Mario Odyssey – 26.95 million units (+0.51 million)
- Pokemon Sword/Shield – 26.02 million units (+0.1 million)
- Pokémon Scarlet & Violet – 23.23 million units (+0.57 million)
- Super Mario Party – 19.66 million units (+0.27 million)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 19.5 million units (+0.99 million)
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 16.7 million units (+0.53 million)
Despite its age, Nintendo has seen an increase in both Switch console sales (+2.4%) and game sales (+1.8%) during the first six months of this fiscal year compared to the same period last year.
This performance is particularly impressive for a console that is nearing the end of its lifespan; however, Switch hardware sales are clearly declining.
In the previous fiscal year, Switch sales declined by 22% compared to the year before. If Nintendo achieves its current sales target of 15 million units for this year, it will represent a further decline of 16.5%.
Nintendo attributes this year’s software sales success to major releases like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Additionally, the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie has positively impacted sales of Mario games, with five million units sold so far this year.
During the three-month period, Nintendo shipped 2.93 million Switch consoles, resulting in a total of 6.84 million units sold in the first half of FY24. Broken down, this consists of 1.25 million units of the Nintendo Switch, 4.69 million units of the Nintendo Switch – OLED Model, and 0.90 million units of the Nintendo Switch Lite.
In terms of software, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold an additional one million units, bringing its total sales to 19.5 million units. The newly released Pikmin 4 debuted with sales of 2.61 million units in the first six weeks. Please note that this period does not include the release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which set franchise launch records in multiple regions.
“For hardware, our goal is to not just have one Nintendo Switch in every household, but several or even one for every individual, by consistently showcasing the appeal of the Nintendo Switch,” stated Nintendo in its forecast statement.
“In terms of software, we released Super Mario Bros. Wonder in October, marking the first completely new installment in the side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. series in nearly 11 years. In the same month, we also released Detective Pikachu Returns. As we head into the holiday season, we plan to release additional titles such as WarioWare: Move It! and Super Mario RPG (both set for release in November). Furthermore, The Indigo Disk, the second part of The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero add-on content for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, is scheduled for release in December.”
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