Nintendo Switch at 122 million: surpasses PS4 and the new Direct arrives

Nintendo published the latest data of the third quarter of fiscal 2023from which a scenario emerges bitter-sweet for the house in Kyoto. The most important news concerns the sales performance of Nintendo Switch, as the Japanese hybrid console has reached 122.55 million units sold, going to position itself in the second step of the podium of Nintendo’s best performing platforms. Before her is only the Nintendo DS, which with its 154.02 million units sold is the most successful Nintendo console.

The result achieved has allowed Switch to also enter the third step of the podium in the ranking of the best-selling consoles ever, where in first place we find PlayStation 2 (157 million), followed by the aforementioned Nintendo DS and now by Switch. It also surpassed PlayStation 4, which with 117 million pieces slipped to fourth place in the global ranking.

The positive figure is however the result of a deterioration in sales performance compared to last year, given that in the same first 3 quarters of the year Nintendo had placed 18.95 million consoles, given that drops to 14.91 million (-21.3%) in the same period of fiscal year 2023.

Software was also down, given that in the same reference period there was a -4% of units sold which brings the partial of 2023 to quota 172.11 million copies. This despite the excellent performance of some of the titles released especially in the final part of last year, such as Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (here our review). The technical problems of the two titles have not worried the general public, which has made the Pokémon games of the last generation “the fastest-selling titles in the history of Nintendo consoles“, going to overcome even a sacred monster like Animal Crossing: New Horizons (the review). From 18 November to 31 December 2022, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have sold 20.61 million copiesdebuting at number seven in the chart of best-selling titles on Switch.

It continues to grow unabated too Mario Kart 8 Deluxewhich leads the ranking at altitude 52 million copiesbreaking all records held by any Nintendo title other than Wii Sports (whose sales are inflated by the fact that it was bundled with every Wii). Very good too Splatoon 3 (10.13 million) And Nintendo Switch Sports (8.61 million); in total there were 27 games (19 from Nintendo and 8 from third parties) to win the title of million seller during the first 3 months of the 2023 fiscal year.

Subdued hardware and software performance prompted Nintendo to revise downwards expectations for the current fiscal yearwhich will only end on 31 March 2023. All the key indicators are down, starting with net sales which go from 1,650 billion yen to 1,600 billion (-3%, around 11.35 billion euro), while the net profit expected to go from 400 billion yen to 370 billion (-7.5%, about 2.6 billion euro); data for the first 3 quarters of 2023 amounted to 1,295 billion yen (9.19 billion euros) in net sales and 346.2 billion yen (2.45 billion euros) in net profit. The expectations for sales of Switch (from 19 to 18 million, -5.3%) and software (from 210 to 205 million, -2.4%) also decreased.

Nintendo blames part of the financial downturn on the ongoing chip crisis, although the market appears to have largely overcome this problem. Probably the decline of Switch is also due to theplatform aging and the absence of a hardware update that would have given way to the console to be more attractive. It becomes more and more evident that the launch of the new generation of Switches is now more and more necessary.

A few hours after the publication of the financial results, Nintendo has also announced the date of its upcoming Nintendo Direct. As often happens lately, communications from the Kyoto company tend to arrive shortly before the events they announce, so even in the case of the next Direct, the date is extremely close to us: the appointment is set for tomorrow February 8th at 11pm.

The choice of proposing a Direct in this time slot is curious, a sign that the event could bring with it some very important news, as well as showing us more precise information on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (as the financial data files confirm the release for May 12th, so there shouldn’t be yet another delay). You will be able to follow the event – which will last for about 40 minutes and will be mainly focused on the games of first part of 2023 – directly from the official Nintendo Italy YouTube channel, which you can find below.