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Nintendo Switch hardware sales were up 20 per cent year-on-year, but the 17 million units sold over the holidays seemingly aren’t enough to get the company over the line of its self-imposed target of 20 million unit sales by the end of the fiscal period.
The company has previously said it aimed to sell 38 million lifetime units, but lifetime sales currently stand at 32.27 million units. After selling just 2 million units over Q3 2018/19 – down 60 percent YoY to just 2.3m – Nintendo has now also revised its Nintendo 3DS forecast, while the mini consoles – the NES and SNES – have sold 5.83 million units combined. Interestingly though, while the company has revised its unit solds projection, it hasn’t adjusted its financial forecast as it expects to make up the shortfall in software sales.
Software sales were similarly impressive, up 100 per cent YoY thanks chiefly to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate which sold 12.08m copies in its opening month – making it the fastest-selling Nintendo game of all time – Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee which sold a combined 10m copies, and Super Mario Party, which shifted 5.3m copies. Sales of other games "continued to grow steadily", too. eShop sales – which includes games and DLC — are up 95.1% YoY to $774.3 million.
By March 31, 2019, Nintendo expects net sales of $11 billion and ordinary profit of $2.12 billion. The operating profit is expected to be $2.06 billion.
Microsoft, too, is reporting its "largest gaming revenue quarter ever". Despite waning hardware sales – a 19 per cent drop year-on-year compared to the same quarter last year – Microsoft’s games revenue increased by 8 per cent YoY in its second fiscal quarter, with software and services sales, which increased by 31 per cent YoY, boosting Xbox revenue to $4.23 billion.
