Nintendo Co., Ltd. has released their hardware numbers for the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2022.
From July 1 to September 30, the Switch has sold 8.28 million units with a breakdown of 6.45 million units of the flagship Switch model, and 1.82 million units of the Switch Lite. Even though this was an increase in hardware sales from last quarter (3.38 million to be exact), Nintendo notes that this was a 34.0% year-on-year decline. The LTD sales of the Switch are now at 92.87 (basically 93) million. It is 8.76 million units away from reaching the total sales of the Wii.
Similarly to last quarter, software sales were also down 6.3% percent year-on-year at 93.89 million units. Nintendo explains that evergreen games continued to drive the sales of the Switch family of systems, but nothing could top the success of Animal Crossing New Horizon‘s release back in March 2020. Despite the decrease, sales for software released so far in the fiscal year were strong: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD sold 3.60 million units, New Pokémon Snap reached 2.19 million units (120,000 increase), and Mario Golf: Super Rush reached 1.94 million units (600,000 increase). Interestingly, no sales for WarioWare: Get it Together! were reported.
Miscellaneous details from the briefing include a decrease of 15.9% year-on-year for digital sales of 144.2 billion yen; however, download-only software for Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Online memberships still sold well. Mobile revenue reached 25.5 billion yen (a decrease of 4.6% year-on-year) with Nintendo noting that the royalty income was “steady”. The company also reiterates to investors that the business as a whole will feel the extended impact of both COVID-19 and the global semiconductor shortage. Production and shipping of hardware could be affected, especially for the recently released Nintendo Switch OLED.
Dave’s first Nintendo platform was the GameCube when he was age 7; however, he was introduced to Nintendo through Duck Hunt on NES.