Nintendo’s financial results for FY3/2018 have been released and it has been a bumper period for the Japanese company.
It’s been revealed that the Switch has now sold 17.79 million units worldwide. Nintendo also revealed that it had increased the forecast sales for Switch from 14 million to 15 million. It was already increased from 10 million to 14 million earlier in the financial year.
The forecast was met, with 15.05 million Switch units sold in the period. As for Switch software, Nintendo increased the forecast to 53 million from 50 million. This was easily met, with 63.51 million units of software sold.
Nintendo Financial Results
Nintendo is now forecasting 20 million Switch units and 100 million software units sold for FY3/2019. Switch hardware sales in the quarter were 2.92 million units with software sales reaching 16.41 million.
Based on these sales, Nintendo has made a profit of ¥139,590 million (~$1.28 billion) which is a 36.1% increase year on year.
As for software, Super Mario Odyssey was Nintendo’s best selling game with 1.34 million units sold in the quarter and 10.41 million sold worldwide. Of that 10.41 million, nearly 2 million were sold in Japan and 8 million globally.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold nearly 10 million units worldwide, as has Breath of the Wild. Splatoon 2 is also a big seller for Nintendo with over 6 million copies sold globally.
Best Selling Switch Games
Other Switch games that have sold over 1 million copies worldwide include ARMS, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Kirby Star-Allies and Pokken Tournament DX.
Nintendo’s statement regarding the Switch reads;
Consumers have been very receptive to the new concept introduced by Nintendo Switch as a home gaming system that they can take
with them to play anytime, anywhere, with anyone, which helped it maintain its favorable momentum during this fiscal year.Looking ahead, we plan to leverage this momentum to reach an even broader range of consumers and expand the installed base of the hardware.
Specifically, we released Nintendo Labo in April as an offering of a new way to play, and then we are slated to release Mario Tennis
Aces in June, as well as the latest entry from the popular series, Super Smash Bros. (temp.) within the year.We expect to release several hit titles from other software publishers as well. Then in September, we will begin offering the Nintendo Switch Online paid service to expand the online functionality of Nintendo Switch.
Our goal is to take full advantage of the platform by continuously introducing compelling new software while further increasing sales of popular titles that are already in the market.
Chasing the Wii
The Nintendo Switch has been a huge success for Nintendo and these financial results only reinforce that. For comparison, the Gamecube sold 22 million units in its lifetime and the Wii U sold only 14 million units.
The Switch has already exceeded the Wii U in its first year and will easily pass the Gamecube’s sales. It’s unlikely that Nintendo will be able to repeat the success of the Wii which sold 101 million units globally.
Hopefully, more information will be released for Smash Bros at E3.
