Nintendo console sales and profits drop as Switch 2 preparations begin

Following Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom and The Super Mario Bros. Movie last year, Nintendo’s financials have seen a noticeable drop in 2024.

With a weak software slate in recent months, coupled with anticipation for Nintendo’s next console, sales for the Switch have unsurprisingly taken a hit over the last three months.

As noted in Nintendo’s financial results for the first quarter of the 2024/25 fiscal year (between April 1 and June 30), Switch lifetime sales now stand at 143.42 million units. This is up from the 141.32 million units sold by the end of March.

That means 2.1 million consoles were sold during this quarter, which is a 46.3% decline year-over-year. In the software department, sales were also down 41.3% when compared to the same period last year.

The reason for this is pretty obvious: The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom came out in May 2023 and there’s nothing anywhere near as big out this year. Plus, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was also helping with Nintendo’s bottom line last summer.

According to Nintendo, the Super Mario movie caused a sales spike in its ‘mobile and IP related business’. And yet this year, the same division saw sales drop 53.8% year-over-year due to the decrease in revenue from the film.

This has all led to a drop in operating profit to ¥54.5 billion (£287 million), which is 70.6% lower compared to the same period last year. Nintendo states this drop is due to ‘the decline in gross profit’ and a rise in expenses.

These expenses are likely to include preparations for the launch of the Switch 2, in terms of manufacturing start-up and marketing, which are certain to eat into Nintendo’s profits for the next couple of years.

Despite this hardware decline, which is to be expected considering the Switch is over seven years old, Switch sales were slightly higher than the previous quarter (1.96 million), which is still surprisingly good going.

Based on these figures, Nintendo isn’t making any changes to its financial projections from May for the overall fiscal year, with the company expecting to sell around 13.5 million units by the end of March 2025 (this would put lifetime sales at around 154.82 million).

The big question now is whether the Switch will go the distance and surpass lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2, at 154.02 million and 155 million, respectively. The lifetime sales figure for PlayStation 2 is unclear though, with former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan recently claiming it got as high as 160 million.

While it remains to be seen how the Switch will be supported beyond Nintendo’s next console, the software line-up for the rest of the year is surprisingly strong, between Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and Mario & Luigi: Brothership, so it’s certainly in with a chance of beating the PlayStation 2’s record.

Elsewhere in the financial report, Nintendo revealed Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, which only came out in late June, has already sold 1.19 million units. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, which came out in late May, has also sold 1.76 million.

On the software side, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still an unstoppable king at 62.9 million units sold, while Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, within less than two years, has nearly surpassed sales of Pokémon Sword & Shield at 25.29 million and 26.35 million respectively. You can check out the top 10 below.

In May this year, Nintendo confirmed its next console will be announced before next April, which is rumoured to feature magnetic Joy-Cons.

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