Nintendo has reported its latest set of financial data and somewhat unsurprisingly sales of the Switch have seen substantial drop of 30.6% year-on-year for the nine months ending 31st December. As such, Nintendo is dropping its expecting operating profit by another 22% to ¥280 billion ($1.8bn).
Why is that not surprising? Well, the console is obviously now 8 years old, and the Switch 2 was recently announced as launching this year.
It should be noted that while sales are down, the Switch continues to sell impressively for such an old console, with another 4.82 million being sold across the quarter, for a total of 9.54 million for the fiscal year. The OLED has been the biggest seller at 5.07 million, with the original Switch coming in at 2.74 million and the Lite sitting in last at 1.73 million.
That brings the Nintendo Switch up to a total of 150.86 million units sold across its lifetime. That means it’s roughly 3.2 million away from overtaking the Nintendo DS, and about 10 million away from dethroning the PS2 as the best-selling console of all time. Keep in mind, Sony quite recently updated the PS2 sales figures, giving it five more million.
But while those numbers are still impressive, they fell below Nintendo’s own expectations. As such the company has again lowered its expectations again for the fiscal year (which ends on March 31) to 11 million consoles sold. In other words, Nintendo is predicting around another 1.5 million Switch units to sold by the end of March.
Software sales also took a fairly big drop of 24%. Nintendo attributes most of this drop to the releases of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, both of which released in 2023 and sold millions upon millions of copies.
Speaking of software, Nintendo provided some updates on its games. Covering October through to December of 2024, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (released in September) managed to sell another 1.3 million copies, bringing its total to 3.91 million. Super Mario Jamboree (October) has managed an impressive 6.17 million. Finally, Mario & Luigi Brothership (November) has sold a fairly soft 1.4 million.
Overall, the top-ten best selling Nintendo games haven’t really changed. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe somehow managed to sell another 2.08 million copies, brining its lifetime total to a whoppping 67.35 million.
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 67.35m (+2.08m)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 47.44m (+0.99m)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 35.88m (+0.74m)
- Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 32.62m (+0.33m)
- Super Mario Odyssey – 29.04m (+0.54m)
- Pokemon Sword/Shield – 26.60m (+0.16m)
- Pokémon Scarlet & Violet – 26.38m (+0.69m)
- Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 21.55m (+0.51m)
- Super Mario Party – 21.10m (+0.12m)
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 18.06 (+0.29m)