Nintendo has announced that Switch hardware and software sales were “below expectations” for the first nine months of its latest fiscal year (April-December 2024) and is also now expecting to sell fewer Switch consoles and games than it previously forecast.
Whereas Nintendo initially announced it was expecting to sell 12.5 million Switch consoles for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, it now expects sales to reach 11 million. Additionally, Nintendo originally modeled 160 million game sales for the fiscal year but is now expecting 10 million fewer, or 150 million.
Despite the lower-than-expected results for the latest period, Nintendo said the Switch “continues to be enjoyed by many people.” Nintendo management said Switch sales have been “stable” for a platform in its eighth year, noting that the Switch Lite: Hyrule Edition, which was released during the holiday, showed “steady growth.” Nintendo management also reminded people that Nintendo released multiple Switch OLED special edition systems in Holiday 2023, so Holiday 2024 was always going to be a tough comparison.
In terms of specifics, Nintendo sold 9.54 million Switch consoles so far this financial year, a decline of 30.6% year-over-year, with game software sales dropped 24.4% to 123.98 million units. As you can see in the chart below, Switch OLED sales made up the bulk of Switch sales, accounting for 5.07 of the 9.54 million units sold through the first nine months of the current fiscal year. The regular Switch (2.74 million units) and the Switch Lite (1.73 million units) followed behind.
While total Switch sales volumes are declining–currently tracking to be the worst year ever for Switch sales–the number of annual playing users is growing, reaching 129 million for 2024, which is up from 127 million in 2023 and 117 million in 2022. It’s important to note, though, that Nintendo measures annual playing users based on the number of Nintendo Accounts, including multiple accounts registered to a single system. An account needed to have logged in just one time in a year to count toward the total tally.
Nintendo’s total revenue and profit declined for the first nine months of its current fiscal year, and for the full fiscal year ending March 31, Nintendo expects net sales and profit to decline as well. This compares to year-over-year increases to net sales and profit for the previous fiscal year.
The Nintendo Switch 2 is Nintendo’s next major hardware release and could help the company turn things around. The system is set for launch at some point in 2025, with a big reveal set for April 2 during a special Switch 2 Nintendo Direct.
#Switch #Pace #Worst #Sales #Year #Stable #Console
