Nintendo had a relatively quiet quarter for Switch sales, with 3.83 million units shipped between July and September. That’s a big drop on the same period last year, when the company moved 6.86 million units. Nintendo has now sold 92.87 million Switch consoles to date.
Nintendo says “the extended impact of both COVID-19 and the global semiconductor shortage creates a state of continued uncertainty” and is revising its Switch sales forecast for the financial year down by 1.5 million units. The company had previously expected to sell 25.5 million consoles between April 2021 and March 2022, but has now set the figure at 24 million. However, Nintendo isn’t altering its expectations for revenue, and actually expects operating profit to be 4 percent higher than previously predicted. The modified forecast takes into account revisions in exchange rates as well as higher projected software sales.
To put the Switch’s performance in context, it could well overtake the Wii in lifetime sales this current holiday quarter. The Wii is Nintendo’s most popular home console of all time and sold 101.63 million units in total; Nintendo sold 11.57 million Switch units between October and December last year. If you consider the Switch a handheld, though, it’s still trailing the Game Boy’s 118.69 million units and the 154.02 million racked up by the DS.
Nintendo doesn’t have a huge lineup of games for the holiday season, although the already-released Metroid Dread and Mario Party Superstars will factor into this quarter’s figures. The biggest imminent releases are remakes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl along with a Legend of Zelda-themed Game & Watch handheld. An Advance Wars remake has been delayed into spring 2022.
