Nintendo Financial Results: 2.74m Switch consoles sold, Breath of the Wild tops 3.84m

Nintendo has announced its end of financial year report and has revealed that 2.74 million Switch consoles have now been sold worldwide (to the end of March). That’s 1.2 million in America, 600,000 in Japan and 940,000 in Europe and Australia.

Nintendo also confirmed that there have been 5.46 million copies of games sold for the Switch as well. As you would expect The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has sold the bulk of that figure with 2.76 million copies sold on the Switch alone. Again, more copies of Zelda sold than actual Switch consoles were. If you include the Wii U version of the game that number jumps to 3.84 million units sold (1.08m Wii U copies were sold).

The company has set its forecast for the Switch sales over the next financial year at 10 million.

The Nintendo 3DS has done well too with a 7% increase year-on-year with 7.27 million units sold. Nintendo attributes some of this to Pokémon Go driving sales of the console, at least outside of Japan. Meanwhile Pokémon Sun & Moon has now sold through 15.44 million copies sold, Kirby: Planet Robobot now sits at 1.36m sold and Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS is on 2.34 million.

The Wii U as you would expect was down, sales volume dropped a massive 77% and only 760,000 units were sold over the entire year. Game sales were down too 46%, down to 14.8 million.

Nintendo’s operating profit was 489.0 billion yen with 29.3 billion yen of net sales. 73.4% of Nintendo’s sales were from overseas (outside Japan). Nintendo says that at least 50.3 billion yen share of profit can be attributed to the equity from The Pokémon Company and other investments. There’s your Pokemon Go cash!

The following games have now sold over a million copies as well;

Switch

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 2.76 million pcs.

Wii U

• Mario Kart 8 – 8.31 million pcs.
• New Super Mario Bros. U – 5.68 million pcs.
• Super Mario 3D World – 5.60 million pcs.
• Super Smash Bros. for Wii U – 5.20 million pcs.
• Nintendo Land – 5.17 million pcs.
• Splatoon – 4.80 million pcs.
• Super Mario Maker – 3.95 million pcs.
• New Super Luigi U – 2.95 million pcs.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD – 2.17 million pcs.
• Mario Party 10 – 2.09 million pcs.

3DS

• Pokémon X/Pokémon Y – 16.11 million pcs.
• Pokémon Sun/Pokémon Moon – 15.44 million pcs.
• Mario Kart 7 – 15.22 million pcs.
• Pokémon Omega Ruby/Pokémon Alpha Sapphire – 13.74 million pcs.
• New Super Mario Bros. 2 – 11.27 million pcs.
• SUPER MARIO 3D LAND – 11.27 million pcs.
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf – 10.97 million pcs.
• Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS – 8.72 million pcs.
• Tomodachi Life – 5.70 million pcs.
• Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon – 5.31 million pcs.

Regarding Nintendo Switch, we will maintain buzz about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch, which are off to a phenomenal start, and release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in April and ARMS in June worldwide. We will release Splatoon 2 in July. Splatoon 2 exemplifies the concept of Nintendo Switch, enabling consumers to play anywhere, anytime, and with anyone, and will bring competition between consumers to new levels of excitement. In addition, we will maintain favorable conditions surrounding Nintendo Switch by providing a continuous stream of appealing third-party titles across varying genres. We aim to stimulate the platform and expand sales going into the holiday season this year.

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Total sales volume for the Nintendo 3DS hardware worldwide has surpassed 66 million units and it has developed into a platform that we can rely on for software sales.

We will release Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia overseas in May (April in Japan) and plan to release Ever Oasis and Hey! Pikmin in June and July. Furthermore, this year is Kirby’s 25th anniversary, so we are planning to release downloadable titles and a new multiplayer action game for Nintendo 3DS. Third-party developers have also announced major titles for Nintendo 3DS. During this period we will continue striving to maintain the momentum of the platform and to reach a broader audience, including females and children, across the world.

In the smart-device business, we released three game applications during this period, each with different playstyles and profit models. We were able to present opportunities for consumers who had never played Nintendo games before and those who live in regions we had previously been unable to reach to experience Nintendo’s intellectual property (Nintendo IP) and the different worlds featured in Nintendo games. Going forward we will endeavor to expand our smart-device business by making use of the experience we have gained so far to provide new game applications, while also focusing on continued operations for our released applications so that consumers can enjoy playing them for a long time.

Based on these efforts, we project a net sales of 750.0 billion yen, an operating profit of 65.0 billion yen, an ordinary profit of 60.0 billion yen and a net profit attributable to owners of parent of 45.0 billion yen. Unit sales of the major products used for the forecast are listed on page 15 under the heading of “(4) Consolidated sales units, number of new titles, and sales units forecast” in the “Others” section. Exchange rate assumptions for the major currencies used for the forecasts are 105 yen per US dollar and 115 yen per euro.

Source: Nintendo IR