The passage of time seems unstoppable.
As today’s business day wrapped up in Japan, Nintendo unveiled their financial results for the fiscal quarter spanning July to September. During this period, the company’s forecasts have unexpectedly been revised downward, marking a shift they haven’t seen in quite some time.
Numbers are presented in yen (¥), but for reference, conversions to US dollars are made using a rate of ¥152.224 = $1.
Financial Snapshot:
- Revenue: ¥276.661 billion (approximately $1.817 billion), which is a 19.78% decline compared to the same time last year.
- Operating Income: ¥67.003 billion (around $440 million), down 29.21%.
- Ordinary Income: ¥33.631 billion (about $221 million), a sharp decrease of 73.36%.
- Digital Sales: ¥79.2 billion (around $520 million), a drop of 19.1%. It’s worth noting that digital sales accounted for 56.3% of software sales within the fiscal year.
- Mobile and IP Revenue: ¥16.5 billion (approximately $108 million), down 28.88%.
Hardware Shipments:
The Nintendo Switch has now sold 146.04 million units cumulatively, with 2.62 million units shipped this quarter alone. The breakdown includes 1.26 million OLED models, 720,000 standard Switch models, and 640,000 Switch Lites. The only special edition hardware this quarter was the Echoes of Wisdom-branded Lite.
To overtake the DS in lifetime sales, Nintendo would need to sell 7.98 million more units, while surpassing the PlayStation 2 would require an additional 12.66 million sales.
New Software Releases:
This quarter saw the launch of three new Nintendo titles, which is up from one (Pikmin 4) in the same period last year. Notably, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has made quite a splash, shipping 2.58 million units within the first five days of its release. However, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition and Emio: The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club haven’t broken the one million shipment mark.
Games from the previous quarter also saw updates: Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door remastered version shipped 1.94 million units, and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD shipped 1.57 million units.
Catalogue Sales:
The top 10 games list remains unchanged. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continues its impressive run with lifetime shipments reaching 64.27 million units. Looking at the Pokémon franchise, it seems Scarlet and Violet are on track to surpass Sword and Shield as the series’ second best-selling games.
Additional Announcements:
Nintendo also reported foreign exchange losses of ¥22.4 billion after initially posting ¥30.6 billion in gains in the first quarter, contributing to the stark decrease in operating income mentioned earlier.
Lastly, the company has adjusted their forecasts downward. They’ve reduced revenue expectations by 5.2% (to ¥1280 billion), lowered operating profit projections by 10% (to ¥360 billion), and decreased Switch hardware shipment targets from 13.5 million units to 12.5 million. Software expectations have also dropped from 165 million to 160 million, reflecting the slowing momentum of Switch sales as the console enters its eighth year on the market.
