Nintendo: Switch on the way to 100 million - business figures

Nintendo

The Switch is well on the way to becoming the most successful Nintendo (home) console of all time - this is evident from the report published today on the past financial year. Between April 2020 and March 2021, Nintendo made gigantic billions in sales not only with hardware, but also with games for the hybrid console a lot of money came into the coffers of the Japanese company. So much so that Nintendo not only had a particularly successful financial year. No, it was actually the video game company's most successful business year ever - and of all time.

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Impressive billion-dollar profit

At this conclusion the well-known industry analyst Daniel Ahmad comes on Twitter. In figures that means: Nintendo made sales of the equivalent of 13.39 billion euros in the past fiscal year, an increase of more than a third over the previous year. The profit before taxes is 5.17 billion euros (+88.4 percent), after taxes the Japanese company achieved a net profit of 3.66 billion euros. An increase of almost 86 percent compared to the previous year.

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Switch heads towards 100 million

The great financial success is largely due to the almost 29 million switch consoles sold in the last financial year. Since the release in March 2017, Nintendo has now been able to sell a total of 84.50 million units of the Switch. Hardware made the largest contribution to the company's sales at 51 percent. The Switch is now number 2 of the most successful Nintendo home consoles of all time, only the Wii is more successful with just under 102 million sales.

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Almost 600 million games sold

But millions of Switch games sold also contributed to the company's success. A total of 22 Switch games were sold at least 1 million times in the fiscal year from April 2020 to March 2021. In total, almost 231 million switch games were sold worldwide during this period. Since the release in March 2017, almost 600 million games have been sold.

Top 10 most successful Switch games

Also, Nintendo again published the updated list of the ten most successful Switch games of all time. In the meantime, no title on this list has been sold less than 10 million times. The top 10 currently looks like this:

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (35.39 million) Animal Crossing: New Horizons (32.63 million) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (23.84 million) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (22.28 million) Pokémon Sword & Shield (21.1 million) Super Mario Odyssey (20.83 million) Super Mario Party (14.79 million) Pokémon: Let's Go , Pikachu! & Eevee! (13.28 million) Splatoon 2 (12.21 million) New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (10.44 million) Sources: Nintendo Investor Relations Information

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Nintendo warns global chip shortage to hit Switch production

Japan’s Nintendo has said that production of its popular Switch gaming console could be hit by global chip shortages, following a similar warning from rival Sony last week.

At its full-year results on Thursday, Nintendo forecast a 12 percent drop in sales of its flagship Switch in the financial year ending in March 2022, citing potential issues with procuring important components.

Nintendo’s comments contrast with its performance over the past 12 months, when the Kyoto-based company’s fortunes were boosted by coronavirus pandemic restrictions that forced entire nations into lockdown and increased demand for home-based entertainment.

The company said it expects to sell 25.5 million Switch consoles for the fiscal year ending next March. That follows a blockbuster year in which Nintendo sold 28.8 million units and benefited from roaring demand for popular first-party titles such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nintendo also expects sales of Switch software to fall 18 percent to 190 million units.

Worries over the potential hit from chip shortages are broadening. The initial focus of concern was the automotive industry, but analysts see a wider range of manufacturers being affected.

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Production “might be affected by obstacles to the procurement of parts, including the increase in global demand for semiconductor components,” Nintendo said in its financial statement.

Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s chief financial officer, said last week that the group would not be able to dramatically increase the production of its new PlayStation 5 console, predicting that the semiconductor shortage would continue throughout the financial year that started in April.

Nintendo, which is famous for its overly conservative guidance, projected its net profit would fall 29 percent to ¥340 billion ($3.1 billion) during the 2021-2022 fiscal year. That came in below analysts’ forecasts of ¥412 billion ($3.7 billion), according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Nintendo expects revenue to fall 9 percent to ¥1.6tn ($14.6 billion).

Nintendo also said it plans to appoint Chris Meledandri, the chief executive of animation studio Illumination and producer of the Despicable Me franchise, as a non-executive director pending shareholder approval in June.

The choice of Meledandri fits with Nintendo’s recent shift in strategy as its chief executive Shuntaro Furukawa has sought ways to more effectively monetize Nintendo’s intellectual property outside its games console business.

Those efforts include the recent opening of the Super Nintendo World attraction at the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka. In presentations to investors, Nintendo has also described plans for an animated Mario film.

For the year that ended in March, profits from its IP and mobile games rose 11.3 percent, helping Nintendo’s annual net profit surge 86 percent to an all-time high of ¥480 billion ($4.39 billion).

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