Nintendo sells significantly fewer Switch consoles, but profits rise sharply

Nintendo sold roughly 1.32 million regular Nintendo Switch consoles in the first quarter of fiscal 2023. That is again more than 25 percent less than last quarter. The number of Switch OLED versions sold also fell by 16 percent.

Nintendo hardware sales Q1 FY23

Global chip shortage would have hampered Switch handheld production, reports Nintendo in the most recent quarterly figures. In their own words, new games would have boosted hardware sales, especially in Japan, but due to production problems, the total number of Switch consoles sold fell by almost 23 percent compared to last year. Seemingly contradictory, the Japanese gaming giant does report that “demand remains stable in all regions.” It would differ per region to what extent the demand for the different models in the Switch family fluctuated.

The company also sold more than 41.4 million games, about 8.6 percent less units than in the same quarter last year. Nintendo Switch Sports was by far the best-selling game for the company with over 4.8 million units. The game was followed by April 2017’s Mario Strikers: Battle League, Kirby and the Forgotten Land and evergreen Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, with 1.91, 1.88 and 1.48 million units sold respectively. These were the only four games to have sold at least a million copies worldwide, according to Nintendo. So there are no third-party games in between.

The disappointing sales figures for games and consoles are only partly reflected in the actual business results. Nintendo earned a total of approximately 307.4 billion yen in the first quarter of fiscal 2023, or just under 2.26 billion euros. That is almost 5 percent less than in the same quarter last year. Remarkably enough, the profit went up again due to a decrease in costs. The company made more than 28 percent more profit, namely almost 874 million euros.