Nintendo announced its financial results for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, with hardware sales of the Switch hitting 4.82 million units, down 30.1% from the same quarter a year ago.
Clearly, we’re starting to get an Osborne situation here, where Nintendo has announced its Switch 2 game console now and Switch sales are just going to keep going down from here.
For the nine months ended December 31, Nintendo has sold 9.54 million Switch hybrid consoles, down 30.6% from a year ago.
Regarding the Nintendo Switch business during the nine months ended December 31, 2024, sales of titles released during this fiscal year increased steadily, with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (released in September) recording sales of 3.91 million units to date.
Super Mario Party Jamboree (released in October) has sold 6.17 million units. In addition, Nintendo saw stable sales in titles released through the end of the previous fiscal year, with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe selling 5.38 million units (for cumulative sales of 67.35 million units).
As a result of these factors, the total number of million-seller titles during this period reached 19, including titles from other software publishers. Hardware sales totaled 9.54 million units (a decrease of 30.6% year-on-year), and software sales totaled 123.98 million units (a decrease of 24.4% year-on-year).
Sales of both hardware and software declined compared to the same period of last fiscal year, when sales were substantially driven by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (released in May 2023) and Super Mario Bros. Wonder (released in October 2023). Even so, sales remained steady for a platform in its eighth year.
Turning to the digital business for the dedicated video game platform, digital sales totaled 245.8 billion yen, down 29.0% year on-year, mainly due to a decrease in sales of Nintendo Switch downloadable versions of packaged software.
In the mobile and IP related business, sales rose significantly in the same period of last fiscal year, thanks to the high level of audience engagement with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was released in April 2023. For this period, sales came to 49.7 billion yen, down 33.9% year-on-year, due to a decrease in revenue related to the movie.
The end result is that overall sales reached 956.2 billion yen, with sales outside of Japan of 731.5 billion yen accounting for 76.5% of the total, and operating profit came to 247.5 billion yen. Interest income of 44.0 billion yen and other factors resulted in ordinary profit of 327.1 billion yen, and profit attributable to owners of parent of 237.1 billion yen.
Although Nintendo Switch hardware and software sales through the third quarter were below expectations, Nintendo Switch continues to be enjoyed by many people. Going forward, we will continue to release new offerings so even more consumers keep playing Nintendo Switch.
Looking at software, Nintendo released Donkey Kong Country Returns HD in January and plans to follow up with the release of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition in March. Other software publishers also have plans to release a wide variety of titles, and Nintendo will strive to invigorate the platform by continually introducing new titles in addition to the existing titles.
Nintendo revised the financial forecast originally published on November 5, 2024, in consideration of the sales trend through the nine months ended December 31, 2024, prospects for the remainder of the fiscal year, as well as a reevaluation of the assumed exchange rate. Nintendo also modified Nintendo Switch hardware and software unit sales forecast for the fiscal year.
The Nintendo Switch debuted in 2017 and it has generated more than 129 million current players still, with sales closing in on 150 million units sold to date.
Nintendo showed off the Switch 2 recently in a two-minute video, and it will start showing it off in public demos in April.
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