It’s clear the Switch has been a resounding success for Nintendo, but it looks like the Japanese gaming giant has even loftier goals for the system for the 2018 fiscal year
The console recently crossed the milestone of 10 million units sold worldwide earlier this month, but now Nintendo has plans to up the ante — and by a significant margin. In a recent interview with Japanese publication Kyoto Shimbun, which was then first reported by Dualshockers, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima stated that the Japanese gaming giant plans to sell 20 million Switch units worldwide between April 1st, 2018 and March 31st, doubling the current install base of the Switch.
These sales numbers fall roughly in line with Sony’s ultra-succesful PlayStation 4 (PS4), which also hit the 10 million unit mark about nine months after its release. To put this in perspective, as of December 2017 the PS4 has sold 70.6 million systems, making it one of the most popular video game consoles of all time and dwarfing its main competitor, Microsoft’s Xbox One, in the process. While Microsoft hasn’t released official Xbox One sales numbers in months, speculation indicates the system’s sales fall somewhere in the 34 million range.
Software will likely be a significant factor in the Switch’s continued success, as it often is in the console video game industry. A big part of why the Switch has been so successful in its first year on the market is the release of system selling games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. While the inherent home console-portable nature of the hybrid system is compelling — especially for someone like myself who is always on the go — this can only push Nintendo Switch sales so far.
Looking to 2018, the Switch is set to get a core Pokemon game at some point in the future, along with games like Square Enix’s Project Octopath, though beyond these two titles, few other big name titles have been revealed for the console. Of course with E3 only a few months away, this could all change in the very near future.
Source: Kyoto Shimbun Via: Dualshockers
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