May11
Nintendo Financial Update - Legends: Arceus sells ~12.64 million copies; BDSP overtake ORAS as best-selling Pokémon remakes ever
The Nintendo Switch sold a respectable 4 million units worldwide over the January-March quarter, with the sales largely split between OLED (1.81 million) and regular (1.77 million) models, with interest in the Switch Lite dipping back down after a solid holiday season (0.53 million, down from 1.34 million). This brings overall sales of Nintendo Switch consoles over 107.5 million units worldwide. While the overall sales of 23.06 million units for the Japanese financial year (April 2021-March 2022) were down roughly 20% from the previous year, this figure represents solid performance for a console that celebrated its 5th anniversary during this quarter, particularly in the middle of global chip shortages that have been plaguing other console makers, and which have prevented the kind of price drops we might have typically seen with past consoles hitting this age. Nintendo is forecasting sales of another 21 million Switch units during the 2022-2023 financial year, which suggests that the release of a new successor console is still quite some distance away. Interestingly, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa declined to answer questions regarding if Nintendo will introduce a new Switch model this year, despite having given explicit denials to similar questions in the past. Several industry journalists and analysts have speculated this lack of denial, together with these sales forecasts, could indicate that Nintendo intends releasing a new Switch model during this financial year.
Pokémon Sword and Shield also saw weaker growth, selling roughly 380,000 units over January-March, bringing the series up to 24.27 million as of the end of the Japanese financial year, and retaining their spot as the 5th best-selling Nintendo Switch games, after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Between the tapering off of sales, and the announcement of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, it now seems increasingly unlikely that these titles will overtake the original Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green, which sold roughly 31.05 million copies in the original Game Boy release, but they have at least for now solidly cemented their place as the 2nd best selling Pokémon titles of all time.
Comments
The franchise is pretty much printing money right now. I hope the anime and the non-mobile spinoffs can get some of that revenue reinvested in them...