Switch sales continue to fall, Nintendo lowers its forecasts and does not mention the successor

Nintendo has been accountable to shareholders by present the results belonging to the second fiscal quarter of 2025. The figures are not good, the forecasts have been revised downwards and the market only wants to hear news about the successor to Nintendo Switch which, however, has not been mentioned. In this sense, Nintendo’s only commitment is that the next console will be presented before March 2025. We will see if the company says anything in the question and answer session that has not yet been transcribed.

During the last semester, 4.72 million Nintendo Switches were shipped, a year-on-year decrease of 31%, for which the OLED model is largely to blame, whose sales during this period fell by 46.8%. Sales of the standard model are maintained, while those of the Lite model are rising slightly. In software, things are not better. We went from 97.08 million games sold during the first two fiscal quarters of the previous year to 70.28 million this year. This is a drop of 27.6%.

For Nintendo, there are two big reasons that explain the decline in sales. On the one hand we have the year-on-year comparison. A year ago, software and hardware sales benefited from the theatrical debut of Super Mario Bros.: The Movie and the arrival in stores of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, while in the first half of the fiscal year 2025 these types of incentives did not exist. On the other hand, Nintendo Switch is on its way to celebrating eight years on the market and the passage of time is noticeable in software and hardware sales.

Nintendo does not expect the Switch situation to change in any case, in fact, it expects it to be worse than announced. So much so that the company has reduced the Switch units it expects to sell at the end of the current fiscal year from 13.5 million to 12.5 million. All in all, Nintendo Switch is a console that has accumulated 146 million units sold and is on track to end the fiscal year exceeding 150 million. We will see if throughout its useful life it manages to catch PS2, the best-selling console in history with 155 million units.

Regarding software, mention that The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom debuts with 2.58 million units sold, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still capable of selling 2.31 million units in one semester. The 10 games first-party Nintendo Switch’s best sellers as of September 30, 2024 were as follows:

1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 64.27 million
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 46.45 million
3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 35.14 million
4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 32.29 million
5. Super Mario Odyssey – 28.50 million
6. Pokemon Sword / Pokemon Shield – 26.44 million
7. Pokemon Scarlet / Pokemon Violet – 25.69 million
8. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 21.04 million
9. Super Mario Party – 20.98 million
10. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 17.77 million