Nintendo Lowers Its Hardware Forecast As Switch Sales Slow To A Crawl

Nintendo is doomed! Doomed, I tells ya!

'wipes tears with Echoes of Wisdom Switch Lite'

Pretty decent sales! By January the Switch will have sold around 152, so just 5 million more to go! And of course they'll get there, there are still games coming out next year (Metroid Prime, Pokemon Legends, Professor Layton, Xenoblade X, DKC Returns, Fantasy Life...). And a price cut is something they MUST do sooner or later.

Also, very happy to see Zelda has sold rather well, in just a few days. What a marvellous little gem, it's become one of my favorite 2D Zeldas.

But that Paper Mario: TTYD is not selling enough! It's one of the best games Nintendo has ever made, imo (and the remake is fantastic), so, same as with Metroid Prime, it has to sell more! We need to show Nintendo these are the kind of things we want from them.

Come on, we all just want the Switch to sur the PS2.
Buy more Switches people! Nothing wrong about having 3 or 4

Seems like an established non-holiday pace indeed, and one Switch's peers will most likely still look back at in envy circa 2028. Forecast adjustments also indicate Nintendo still expects several times this number from the last winter holidays before Gen 10 (the looming shadow of new Pokemon Legends, XCX and MP4 on what remains the cheapest console gift with the richest library only serving to fuel those expectations) and afterwards we'll likely be back to chugging on to the proverbial pedestal top. Which is already less than 10 million away.☕

If this was one of the other triple A companies, I would expect several waves of layoffs at this point

we need switch 2 confirmation any day now nintendo..

They just need to do a price drop. I think it’s now time!

The Switch will continue to sell even after the Next Switch launches at a high price point with only a few first party games. If I had my druthers we’d be getting a Switch Pocket in addition to next-Gen to really make the Switch’s large library more portable than it’s ever been.

If Nintendo fails to sell more Switch systems by the end of its life than PS2, it should be ashamed imo. The win is Nintendo's for the taking. Why would any company not want to take that accolade and have it listed on the record of history. Take the effin win, Nintendo!

I am ready for Switch 2 , as is my body, my warped and cracked console, the Nintendo community, the developers ,the publishers, the investors, the consumers and the industry itself. The time for a reveal is now.

Still pretty insane sales for such a long running generation. It's probable that Nintendo is still operating at a profit regarding console sales despite lower than anticipated sales.

I can’t see the logic in Nintendo announcing the Switch successor any time before December 25th.

I know NintendoFan1337 wants it. I know NintendoFan1338 wants it too. Heck, I know I want it.

But the run up to the ‘Holidays’ seems a very strange time to announce something that you cannot actually buy for the Holidays.

I don’t think the combined ire of NintendoFans 00001~99999 is going to change that.

Everybody and their mum knows there’s a successor coming next year so no surprise things are slowing down.

Price cut would help. Plus a TV only model would be a great option at this point…if they could bundle a box and Pro controller for less than £150 they’d have the best budget console on the market by far.

@RetroGames Once the next console is out, I imagine the Switch will get a hefty price cut and value bundles. They're still ing it with big games for at least the next 6 months in its 8th year, so I'm not really sure what more they can do? It will likely continue to sell in decent numbers for a few years yet, particularly in developing countries. Whether that will be enough to get it past PS2, remains to be seen.

@RetroGames I don’t think Nintendo really cares about the sort of accolades that Console Warrists care about. I think the main accolade they care about is earning lots of money, with only half an eye on the competition (and even then that eye is winking amicably.)

We’re no longer in the SNES vs. Mega Drive era. Mario and Sonic are only rivals if you pit them against each other in the same (Nintendo) game. Horizon is on Switch (albeit in brick form). Banjo is in Smash. One of the biggest Switch games — Minecraft — is owned by Microsoft.

I don’t think Nintendo is going to turn itself inside out to get the top spot on a fairly meaningless chart if that effort could be better spent on its successor.

As @OorWullie had said, maybe a price cut could push it over the edge. But I doubt it’s their top priority.

@BenAV The Xenoblade release date is interesting, isn’t it? The absolute final deadline for the Switch II announcement is 31st March 2025, which means there’s a very strong possibility we’ll already know about it by the time XCX is released — and even if not, we should know within two weeks.

They’ll be trying to push this ambitious, sprawling open-world game for geriatric hardware at a time when everyone will be talking about the hot, new, far more powerful successor that would clearly run it much better.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if XCX ends up playing the role of the cross-generational Zeldas that occasionally bookend a console’s life.

“Yes, we put it on the old console as promised, but don’t you want it on the new, shiny one? Yes, you do. Yes, of course you do.”

Time will tell!

If Nintendo releases some great titles like Metroid Prime 2/3, Twilight Princess/Wind Waker bundles maybe packed with the consoles for holidays, they could maybe sell a few more mil units.

I suspect there will still be another custom switch for the next pokemon game... and I'm waiting to see if they'd do a "TV only" Switch revision that's a dirt cheap little box with no screen.

@Yoshi3 But is there something wrong with owning 5? Just asking for a friend.

I think it will reach it. The holidays will give it that bump. Then, 2025 will hit it!

The article needs to be corrected as the year on year decrease is 10% not 31%. Solid numbers overall.

Update: My bad, the drop for the year so far is in fact 31%. I was just looking at the quarter. It does look like the switch sales for this quarter are fairly normal (slightly lower) and the big difference was Q1 which was massively down on the previous year due to TOTK/Mario Movie

@FaroreAbhorsen hit the BUY button faster!!

But they are STILL releasing fantasticv games...Super Mario Party Jamboree is (in my opinion) the BEST the series has ever been!!! Even the solo player mode is fantastic

Very respectable numbers. A bump during Black Friday and the holidays will give a strong finish to the calendar year. I expect the PS2 milestone to be met next year. Even if Switch 2 launches next year, the OG will still plod on for a couple of years no doubt doing decent numbers.

@sanderev why only 5 when you can start giving them to your neighbors! To the pool boy. To the mailman. To the creepy guy that watches you from the vents in your house!

@Yoshi3 Are you saying I should get a fourth Switch ... while #3 plays exclusively Zelda ... 😋
Wouldn't that be considered cheating ?! 😅

@Anti-Matter same comment we've seen before. Yes the PS5 is more powerful and no surprise to anyone but the Switch's library is arguably better.

We get it. You like the PS5. You think the Switch is underpowered etc. Switch up the narrative for once. It's borderline trolling saying the same thing.

No surprises here TBH, Switch is 7 years old (Which is ancient in electronics years), everybody who wants a Switch has one, and to top it off, anybody with even a ing interest in gaming knows Switch 2 (Or whatever they'll call it) is going to be announced soon, of course sales are slowing down.

It's ridiculous how Nintendo could earn at least another 200 bucks from me if they were willing to put their older games on a reasonable sale just once in a while, but since they insist on a full price all of the time, they won't get a dime. I have a Nintendo console and I haven't ever bought a single Nintendo game.

@Anti-Matter That's NOT a Switch issue, man, but a developer's lack of talent. Bluey is not a demanding game, if they can't get it to run smoothly on Switch it's because they're a bunch of lazy people that wants to get easy money. That's it.

@Maxz They won't. Anyone who thought this are literally insane.

If they really planned to announce the Switch 2 this year, they would have done so before the Summer with a release this holiday season.

They not going to announce a Switch 2 now, so close to the holiday season and screw up their holiday sales profits by instantly killing off Switch sales.

You can't compare this with the original Switch announcement back then in October, with a March release the following year. The WiiU at that time was literally dead and holiday sales forecasts were dead too, with WiiU consoles at that time moving units in the hundreds. It was really that bad!
So Nintendo at that time, literally had nothing to lose and was practically forced to announce the Switch at that time, to save the company and keep investors. It was thanks to the 3DS console sales still doing well, that they managed to keep their heads above water.

Today, Nintendo is doing better than ever with Switch console sales still in the millions. So again, why in earth would they rush an announcement right now before the Holiday season?

@Yoshi3 Once they release a Yoshi special edition Switch I'll be getting my third one lol.

@Jeronan I think we’re in full agreement!

(Apart from maybe the bit about the Wii U being literally dead )

6.84M hardware units in the first half of FY25 does not constitute Switch sales slowing to a crawl.

If it repeats that for the second half of the year, it will have sold 13.68M units. Perfectly fine for a, by then, 8 year old system.

If projections hold, Switch will be at 152.88M come the start of April 2025, then it can have a slow "crawl" towards suring the PS2's 155M

@Maxz It was a figure of speech, but for investors and the company itself, when you only move a couple hundred units a month, that's pretty much as dead as it gets.

And don't get me wrong. I loved my WiiU console back then. It was a shame Nintendo screwed up so badly with naming the console WiiU and their whole marketing around it.
If they had given it a completely different name with better marketing strategy, it would have performed a hell lot better.
It was an amazing console and above all, it had full native of the original Wii. So people buying the WiiU at that time had immediately access to the huge and amazing Wii games catalog!

Unlike the Switch, which really suffered from a lack of major title releases the first 2 years, with some serious software draughts. It wasn't until year 3 that things became better.

@Yoshi3 buy them games to start with, too! Route Me Mail for the mailman, Beholder for the creepy guy, Subnautica for the pool boy...

@GameName first party games are discounted on a regular basis or even partly on-demand via the voucher system. They're just not sufficiently concerned that you've been spoiled by the kind of Ubisoft or Bamco sales, especially while they continue to get the aforesaid 200 bucks and then some elsewhere.

@Jeronan I agree it was figuratively very very extremely super-duper dead! Dead as a door-nail nailed to a dead-ass dodo.

@nhSnork don’t forget Hello Neighbor for the neighbors… that should send them a message

It was never going to sell TOTK numbers but Echoes of Wisdom doing 2.6m units in just 5 days is super impressive.

if they havent got new switch they need do big deal get annysales at christmas

If Nintendo lowered the price of its hardware at this point in its life, it could have sured the PS2 in lifetime sales.

@Yoshi3 and if they process this message as a reason to call the police, you'll be ready for the officers' arrival with the Astral Chain and Lego City Undercover bundles.🎅👮👮

Of course sales are grinding to a halt. Everyone knows that the next console is coming in 2025, so buying an OG Switch now makes little sense. Price wise it will be similar so many will hold off for the next model and get it next Xmas when it will be available.

@CupidStunt That would be the most sensible option but with sales down, there is no chance they will do that. It’s just not what Nintendo do

@Jeronan They won’t. They will wait and release it holiday 2025 but I don’t expect it will get close the OG model.
Remasters of remasters incoming on Switch 2.
I can’t see Series X and PS5 ports being much fun as the next model looks like it will be nothing more than a minor re iteration.

They're going to need a very strong holiday season, even with lowering their forecast. While Echoes of Wisdom, Mario & Luigi + a new Mario Party are solid releases, will that be enough to move enough hardware to meet the lowered expectation?

I look forward to the next quarters financial data to see if they can pull it off.

The big question is why Nintendo doesn’t announce a Switch price cut. It’s a lame duck console at this point. If you want to keep selling them, tepid bundles with MK8 just aren’t gonna do it!

Still projected to beat Wii U lifetime sales in its 8th year! (Ish)

@MjJmediablogger It seems you have forgotten how bad the first 2 years of the Switch were, with barely a handful of major releases.
Nintendo can't afford anymore to repeat the same mistake or they will have a new WiiU debacle on their hands.

People today expect full backwards compatibility, as both Microsoft and Sony have gone to a Software first approach in recent years with full backwards compatibility to keep their new consoles relevant.

Nintendo has shown time and again they cannot produce major first party titles fast enough and they don't get the full of major AAA studios due to the huge power gap in Nintendo consoles and PlayStation/Xbox/PC. So it's too time consuming and too expensive to port most titles to Nintendo.
And if they port, it almost always end up being an inferior port on the Nintendo console with terrible sales as result.
Classic Catch 22.

It won't be any different with the Switch 2 console, which is expected to on par with the PS4 in power.
With both Microsoft and Sony now release Pro versions of the current generation, it will be the exact same situation again with the same huge power gap.

So the only way for me to justify buying the Switch 2 next year, is if it has full backwards compatibility. If not, then I will be done with Nintendo and stick with my current Switch OLED for my portable gaming needs.

But luckily you are wrong and we already know the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible, with titles like Pokemon Legends and Xenoblade X port launching on both consoles next year.

PS. , there are still more than enough games left that haven't been ported yet. For example. What about both Zelda Twilight Princess and Wind Waker WiiU remakes that have not been ported to the Switch yet?
Then there are still plenty of Gamecube and Wii classics people would love to see ported.

Price drop now Nintendo.

Lol price drop. Their seven year old console is still moving and selling games well, just not crazy well. The only price drop will be if they do a cheap beginner/digital lite model with no cart slot or something.

The PS2 talk is always silly. The PS2 was the cheapest entry level DVD player when the tech was new and hot. It's absolutely apples and oranges to compare that console's sales to any others because there's no way to separate those sales types.

Just one more notable holiday season to juice Switch sales. Even if it falls short of reaching the highest milestones, Switch has absolutely been a major success across the board. Once again, it will keep selling after the next system.

If Nintendo drop its price, ing PS2 wouldn't be a question.

To be fair if Nintendo actually drop their price for the Switch, i would get one for my Mrs because she casually plays games.

Without a price drop I can't justify it, in fact even with the price drop, has to be low enough for consideration.

@Coalescence The same with PS4 when it launched. Cheaper or about same price as regular Blu Ray player you could buy at the time and get a gaming console to boot lol.

4th quarter/holiday sales tend to make the bulk of console sales, but the Switch is definitely slowing down. People really are starting to talk about holding out on buying a any console until Switch 2 drops

They would have sold more if Nintendo had sold them a little cheaper.

@johnedwin
We have Switch Successor confirmation.
All we are now waiting for is an announcement that might be more in-depth or a reveal of some sort.

@Yoshi3 I want to help with an OLED and maybe a Lite, but money reared its ugly head and laughed at me this year.

Even with the advent of the Swiitch*, I'm not ready to move on as I'm still missing some Switch games such as Mario Wonder, or Marvel vs. Capcom, plus Metroid Prime 4 coming next year.
There's a lot of talk (read: speculation) of the Swiitch being backwards compatible, and I want to believe it will be but nothing has been confirmed so far, so I want to prevent my own screw-up in case I have to sell my Switch.
EDIT: I can rescind of this part, but still not gonna be an early adopter.

Not planning to get a Swiitch until at least 2026 or 2027. I do want to get games for it before I get one, much like I did with the Switch itself and the 3DS.

*Notice the double i, that's how I refer to the successor for the time being.

I just want to see Switch PS2 as the best selling console of all time!

But I've already done my part with 12 purchases of Switch systems between the OG, Lite, & OLED models.

I'm guessing the Switch 2 will be revealed at the end of the fiscal year, by the last week of March with its release scheduled around September.

As for the original Switch, I want it to sur the PS2 (as we all do). I hope it goes on sale during the holiday season with new bundles and a pretty strong marketing. Of course, it will still keep selling even after the release of its successor, but this holiday will be the last big opportunity to make the most of it.

@RetroGames & a price cut will surely do that.

@Moshugan Nintendo right now has a gross profit margin of 60.8% (up from 59.3% last year) and an operating profit margin of 23.2% (down from 35.2% last year).

The rest of the industry is down too. Console gaming has gone flat due to content not being very engaging. Nintendo has made some excellent games, but they’ve had some duds too.

PS5 did sur the NES back in October, but it took almost four years to get there.

I think there’s serious gamer fatigue in the market. Hope GTA6 will make things interesting for PS5/XSX crowd. The Switch 2 will do well, but if the rest of the industry goes flat and it’ll have an uphill climb ahead of it. It’ll be like the NES days.

My household has 2 Switch consoles in it. Will be 3 whenever the Switch 2 arrives. I must have the best experience possible for xenoblade chronicles X. Hopefully the remaster includes new music for some of the areas like NLA.

Never mind beating PS2, Switch is on track to beat NDS lifespan sales by 2025, which is still an amazing feat.

Nintendo is targeting the DS sales numbers before announcing the "NS2" but before that they were so optimistic that they had the PS2 sales records on sight.

Ask Jim "L"yan are the sales numbers accurate !

The Nintendo Switch could easily outsold DS and PS2 this year had Nintendo did the common thing and announce a price dropped for all their models. Switch Lite at $99, Switch original at $199, and Switch OLED at $249 would had help it skyrocket to success, only thing is Nintendo had the fuse to ignite it and choose not to. This method may be too late once the Switch 2 is announce soon.

If the Switch 2 launch at $400, nobody would want to buy the Switch at $300-$350 anymore, if Switch 2 launch at $500 then it will automatically becomes a failure. The more reasonable thing to do is announce a Switch price dropped now then announce the Switch 2 launch price at $350-$400 later. With this in place those who still want a Switch could get one before the next gen begins and those who wanted to go next gen could do so without feeling like they just got screw.

Once they announced Switch successor this was going to happen, they should have kept it under wraps until the reveal.

They're only 10m sales off catching the PS2, highly likely as they continue to bundle the console into the life of the Switch 2.

Imagine telling that to yourself during the GameCube generation!

I own a Lite (the console that got me into the Switch and back to gaming on Nintendo as my main platform) and an OLED, so at this point unless one breaks I'm waiting for the successor.

@Maxz They should, and not because of some childish and immature concept of "console warrists", but because Sony has been able to claim the most successful gaming system of all time for decades, and that's a great accolade to be able to write about and put in the Guinness Book of World Records and have for posterity and use as a future advertising tool and so on. No great company is afraid of being called biggest and best at something. It's ludicrous to believe otherwise. And any proud and successful games company that has a realistic shot at being on the top of the Best Selling Console of All Time list would only be smart to try and get there with all its might imo. There's a reason award shows and world records and lists of all 10/10 reviews and industry accolades and so on exist, and we don't have pretend this stuff doesn't matter to Nintendo or its fans with fake virtue signalling, like Nintendo or is fans are somehow above such things. Any smart business person would see the value in this achievement without a second thought or explanation needed. It would be a brilliant way to finish the Switch's life, the cherry on top and a very powerful single focal statement of where Nintendo is at in the industry, and Nintendo should absolutely shoot for it.

@Erigen should’ve wiped them with Tears of the Kingdom

@DTfearTheBEARD wow super Switch fan! I thought I was bad with 4 different Switches (I sold one to my nephew)

A price drop in time for the holidays would help erode the rot!

Sorry, which planet considers 12.5M units a crawl? I'll happily concede it's past it's peak. But it's descent is pretty normal.

@Coalescence That’s a very valid point

@Antraxx777 It was an addiction, haha.
But I sold 4 systems to friends and family over the years. So now I'm down to 8 Switches. 2 ACNL Og's, Zelda OLED, Splatoon OLED, yellow, gray, turquoise, & Pokémon lite systems.

Did the switch sured de ps2 yet? I reading about sony changing the ps2 sales number when the switch was nearing that some time ago.

@RetroGames I’m inclined to believe that if Nintendo were prioritising sales numbers over pure profit then we might have seen a single price drop in eight years.

…But then that’s exactly what a ludicrous virtue signaller (?) would think, isn’t it?

Makes sense. I almost bought a new one (had one around launch for a year) this year to catch up, but will much prefer to spend that money on a Switch 2, especially when the Switch itself has barely changed in price since release.

February reveal video and May launch. I’ve not been expecting anything Switch 2 since they promised something ‘by the end of this financial year’.

146 million units sold for hardware that is to be quite honest very dated at this point is very impressive. Sales crawling to a stand still was to be expected though. Too many people are just waiting for Nintendo to announce their next console.

The Switch will always be seen as a hybrid console, so history will be skewed regardless of where it's sales figures end. The PS2 will remain the biggest selling dedicated home console, the switch will end up the runner up to the NDS.

The fact they have managed to shift these numbers for a dated system even at launch with zero price cuts is astonishing.

@X68000 “The PS2 will remain the biggest selling dedicated home console.” Not sure “dedicated home console” is the right description for what was for many buyers an affordable DVD player.

@Maxz And you inclination might be correct, which goes back to my original post.

If we consider the lifetime sales for Wii U over several years was 14 million... 2 million sales in a few months for a system that is 7 years old is pretty incredible, especially considering consumers these days are well informed and they know a next generation release is imminent.

@kedireturns You’re giving the PS2 extra credit for succeeding despite its challenges, piracy, competition, format changes, but then dismissing the Switch’s success because of its own challenges like COVID, chip shortages, and no handheld competition. That’s not consistent. If context matters, it should matter for both. The Switch didn’t get a free ride, it thrived in a tough market with smart design and broad appeal. Like it or not, it’s matched, and arguably sured, the PS2’s legacy.