It looks like the Nintendo Switch continues to sell extremely well.
The last time Nintendo revealed its earnings, we learned that the Switch had already sold as many units as the Wii U — and this was just in the console’s first nine months on the market.
In Nintendo’s latest earnings report, marking the end of the company’s financial year, we now know that the Japanese gaming giant has sold 2.93 million consoles over a three month period. This isn’t near the 7.23 the Switch sold in its first three months on store shelves, but does push the system’s total units up to an impressive 17.19 million.
In terms of software sales, Super Mario Odyssey crossed the 10 million mark, with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe shipping 2 million units over the quarter’s three month period. Even titles released earlier in the Switch’s lifespan like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Splatoon 2, have managed to continue to do well, selling somewhere between 1.5 and 1 million units over the same period, according to Nintendo.
Since Nintendo’s cardboard Labo platform just released, it’s still unclear how well the experimental platform is selling. We also don’t know when Mario Kart Tour, the company’s next mobile effort, is headed to smartphones. That said, reports indicate the game’s release date is likely at some point in 2018.
While the 3DS seems to be quickly becoming an afterthought for Nintendo, the aging handheld shipped just over half a million units over the last three months, bumping the year’s total to a sizeable 6.40 million units. The SNES Classic on the other hand, which the company says “proved to be a hit in every region,” shipped 5.28 million units in the last 12 months. Months after the SNES Classic’s release, the retro console revival remains difficult to find on store shelves.
In total, Nintendo earned $1.6 billion USD in profit in 2017. To put this number in perspective, the company took home $270 million in the year prior. Along with its earnings, Nintendo also announced that current President Tatsumi Kimishima, who took over from the late Satoru Iwata in 2015, is stepping down. Kimishima is being replaced by Shuntaro Furukawa.
Nintendo also revealed that the upcoming traditional Pokemon RPG for the Switch will be released in “2018 or later.” This indicates that the eagerly anticipated game could miss its original 2018 release window.
In the next financial year ending in March, 2019, Nintendo expected to sell another 20 million Switch consoles.
Source: Nintendo
