What just happened? Nintendo has announced what was a very good fiscal second quarter for the Japanese gaming giant. In addition to beating sales and profit expectations, the Switch moved slightly closer to becoming the company’s best-selling console of all time. It also announced a new Switch OLED bundle, but there was no comment on plans for a Switch successor.
Nintendo’s revenue for the fiscal second quarter stood at 334.9 billion Japanese yen ($2.2 billion), beating the expected figure of 317.3 billion yen. Net profit, meanwhile, stood at 90.3 billion yen ($599.5 million), ahead of the expected 75.7 billion yen.
For the six months between April to September, Nintendo reported a 21.2% year-on-year rise in revenue to 796.2 billion yen as net profit increased 17.7% to 271.2 billion yen. Video game sales were boosted by the likes of Tears of the Kingdom and Pikmin 4 – titles that encouraged more people to buy Switch consoles – and Nintendo said the Mario Bros. Movie also contributed to IP-related income while boosting sales of the Mario games.
Switch sales were up 2.4% YoY during the last quarter. The Switch OLED was the most popular model with 4.69 million units sold. Nintendo said its overall sales in the first half of the fiscal year have been “the largest since the launch of Nintendo Switch.”
The better-than-expected sales figures have prompted Nintendo to raise its annual profit forecast.
The Switch’s 132 million sales puts it in third place on the list of best-selling consoles of all time – a remarkable achievement for a device that was only released in 2017 and to plenty of skepticism at the time. It still isn’t Nintendo’s best-selling console, though; that honor goes to the Nintendo DS with 154 million sales.
Following the release of the earnings report, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa refused to comment on plans for a Switch successor during a conference call. A recently discovered Nintendo patent showing a dual-screen device has led to rumors that some elements of the design could appear in the Switch 2.
Back in September, sources claimed that Nintendo held closed-door presentations of the Switch 2 during Gamescom 2023 in Germany a month earlier.
In other news, Nintendo has announced a new OLED Switch bundle ahead of Black Friday that includes Joy-Cons that feature the game’s logo, a full game download of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and three months of Nintendo Switch Online’s Individual membership. It will cost $349 when it arrives on November 19 at select retailers and the My Nintendo Store.
