Nintendo lowered its financial forecast for the current fiscal year after Switch hardware and software sales took a hit.
As noted in the the company's tax report for the six months ended September 30, 2024, hardware sales fell 31% year-over-year to 4.72 million units. In the same period, software sales fell 27.6% to 70.28 million units.
Nintendo noted that hardware and software sales were largely driven by the launch of The tears of the Kingdom during the previous fiscal year, and said the lack of an equally impactful release this year caused a decline.
Even so, the company said sales of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom made a “good start,” with the title moving 2.58 million units since September. Including other sales highlights over the last six months Paper Mario's Thousand Year Door (1.94 million units) e Luigi's villa 2 HD (1.57 million units).
Lifetime Nintendo Switch hardware sales have now surpassed 146 million units, while software sales have surpassed 1.3 billion units. The console could still usurp the Nintendo DS as the best-selling Nintendo console in history if it manages to surpass 154.02 million in total sales.
Nintendo now expects the Switch to sell 12.5 million units during the current fiscal year, after lowering its forecast from 13.5 million units.
Taking a brief look at Nintendo's digital business, digital sales fell 26.5% to 159.9 billion yen over the past six months. Nintendo said the decline was mainly due to declining sales of digital software.
The company's mobile and IP sales fell 43.3% year-on-year to 31.2 billion yen. Nintendo noted that the last fiscal year saw the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which brought huge engagement but in turn contributed to this year's decline.
Consolidated net sales for the first half of the fiscal year fell 34.3% year-over-year to 523.2 billion yen ($3.44 billion). Operating profit fell 56.6% to 121.5 billion yen ($798.6 million), and profit attributable to the owner of the parent company fell 59.9% to 108.6 billion yen (713.8 million dollars).
Taking this into account, Nintendo lowered its full-year forecast and expects to achieve net sales of 1.28 billion yen (down from 1.35 billion yen) by March 31, 2024. The profit operating is now expected to reach 360 million yen (down from 400 million yen). Net and ordinary earnings forecasts remain unchanged.
