The Switch reached an important overall milestone, with global shipments reaching 89.04 million units, even though Nintendo’s overall sales eventually declined after the quarantine.
Nintendo, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, released its Quarterly earnings report On Thursday morning, there is always a lot to do. Compared with Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo is extremely transparent about its precise sales figures.
From April to June this year, Nintendo sold 4.45 million Switches and 45.29 million pieces of software.April new Pokémon Break, The long-awaited 1999 Pokémon photo safari sequel sold 2.07 million sets, and May’s remake RPG Mitopia Break one million easily. Mario Golf: Super Sprint, although Moderate review, Which successfully moved 1.34 million units after its release in June.
surprisingly, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Edition It is still the best-selling game on the Switch, with 1.69 million units sold this quarter, a total of 37.08 million units, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons “Only” sold another 1.26 million, for a total of 33.89 million.I had expected New horizons The gap should have been closed now, but I think this is the result of my bet on Mario.
Even so, these figures marked a significant slowdown in Nintendo’s overall sales, with hardware down 21.7% from the same period last year and software down 10.2%. Digital sales are particularly sluggish, with sales decreasing by 24.9% compared to the same period in 2020.
However, this is not yet a warning sign.Nintendo’s profits have indeed taken a hit, but as the report itself points out, its debut in the same quarter of 2020 New horizons, This is a great success from the very beginning, and it is a big system seller of Switch.
From April to June last year, distancing measures from the international community were also taken, which in turn boosted the sales growth of the entire video game industry. Nintendo’s performance was less last spring, so this quarter’s comparison will always weaken.
The interesting thing here is to pay attention Mainstream business media This is being covered in comparison with gaming enthusiast sites. In the past year and a half, investors and analysts have been paying close attention to the video game industry, basically waiting for when (or if) the impact of the pandemic on sales will disappear. Both Sony and Microsoft recently announced significant increases in hardware sales because their next-generation game consoles are selling almost as fast as they are being manufactured, which makes Nintendo look even worse.
However, for enthusiasts, this can essentially be seen as Nintendo’s return to normal business. The Switch tends to loop, and consumer interest is driven by Nintendo’s highly anticipated first-party game.Since Nintendo hasn’t had a major original release for a while (it can be said that since New horizons, In fact), it is natural that it will be in a downturn at the moment, but once there is a similar release date, all of this will be reversed immediately Breath of the Wild 2.
Even if the Switch’s sales are slow, the 89 million milestone is enough to make it the seventhday The best-selling video game console of all time, surpassing Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (More than 84 million) And Sony’s PlayStation 3 (87.4 million).Nintendo expects Switch to exceed 100 million mobile devices Around March 2022, By then it will sell more systems than the record Wii, and it will sell faster.
(It’s also worth noting here that unlike Sony or Microsoft, Nintendo estimates that actually Earn money Sold in hardware per unit. There is a solid 20-year trend. News about Nintendo has never been as bad as analysts say, and today’s financial report is no exception.
Nintendo has not changed its financial forecasts for the rest of this year. The OLED Switch released in October is expected to drive growth in hardware sales.
First-party games for this year’s holiday include WarioWare: Come together! In September; Metroid Fear And online power supply Mario Party Superstar In October; remake with two big Pokémon, Brilliant diamonds and Bright pearl, November.
This is a relatively weak situation, as last year’s COVID work-from-home measures continued to slow down Nintendo’s internal production cycle. In its main first-party version, three out of five- Super star Is a compilation of mini games and board from all over the world Mario party The series-actually re-released, just like the HD remake in July The Legend of Zelda: Sky Sword. Like many developers today, Nintendo is forced to improvise to fill out its release calendar.
This holiday also makes Nintendo fall into dependence Metroid A game that is the backbone of the festival; although it is one of Nintendo’s core franchises, Metroid The series is traditionally regarded as the red-haired stepchild of the series.