Switch 2’ Buzz Builds as Nintendo Reports Declining Switch Sales

Nintendo shares slumped Friday after the Japanese gaming giant revealed lackluster sales for its flagship Switch console, a sign of waning interest in the aging device as it nears the end of its life span, increasing pressure on the company to announce plans for the eagerly anticipated next-generation console.

Nintendo shares fell 2.34% by market close in Tokyo on Friday after the company reported disappointing revenue and profits for its first fiscal quarter (Japan’s financial year begins in April). Net sales fell by nearly half compared to the same period last year, while operating profit plummeted 71%, Nintendo reported.

The decline, greater than analysts had expected, is partly due to last year’s blockbuster successes of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo said there were “no such special factors” this quarter, coupled with sluggish sales of the Switch, which is now in its eighth year since launch. Units of both hardware and software “decreased significantly year-on-year,” with 2.1 million Switch consoles sold in the first quarter, down 46% from 3.9 million sales the year before. Software sales also fell, dropping 41% year-over-year to 30.6 million units.

While console sales have dropped off precipitously from the year before, Nintendo noted hardware sales were on par with those from the previous quarter and appear to be “stable.”

The Nintendo Switch celebrated its seventh birthday in March, and it shows. Nintendo’s flagship console, a hybrid between a handheld device and a gaming console, has outlived previous Xbox and PlayStation generations. Still, its dated hardware has struggled to keep up with increasingly large and ambitious gaming titles for years. Sales are noticeably trailing. Analysts and consumers have been expecting an update for years, and there are scant details about the Switch’s successor. The Kyoto-based giant is notoriously secretive about its projects. Still, evidence of a successor console in the works has slowly emerged as details leak from partners, including game developers and hardware manufacturers.

The console, often dubbed “Switch 2” in the absence of a formal name, will reportedly have an 8-inch LCD screen, not an OLED screen, according to Bloomberg, which will be manufactured by Sharp. Specification details for the console will likely come into focus once Nintendo distributes more dev-kits to game developers, who will need them ahead of time to produce new titles for the device. Nintendo executives have long stayed mum over the Switch 2, but this year president Shuntaro Furukawa said the company would make an announcement “within this fiscal year,” giving Nintendo a deadline of the end of March 2025. This aligns with rumors that the Switch 2 will launch in the first fiscal quarter of 2025, sometime between the start of April and the end of June.

Despite sluggish sales in the first quarter, Nintendo said it still expects to sell 13.5 million Switch consoles this year. The company’s roster of upcoming releases includes several gaming titles from its blockbuster franchises, including Mario, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, Metroid Prime, and Zelda. While they are all designated as “Nintendo Switch” games on Nintendo’s website, it’s possible some could be destined for the new console based on Nintendo’s estimated release date. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and Mario & Luigi: Brothership are all expected in 2024—in September, October, and November, respectively—and fall firmly within the Switch’s lifespan this financial year, as does Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokemon Legends: Z-A is listed as “release date TBD,” the titles are big enough to potentially work as launch titles for a new console.

143.42 million. That’s how many Switch consoles Nintendo has sold since it launched the device in 2017. The figure makes the Switch one of the best-selling game consoles of all time, behind only the Nintendo DS and Sony’s PlayStation 2, which sold 154 million and 159 million units, respectively.

Nintendo said two gaming titles sold more than 1 million units this quarter. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door sold 1.76 million units, and Luigi’s Mansion 2 sold 1.19 million. Another unnamed title from another publisher also sold more than 1 million units, though Nintendo did not provide further details.