“Nintendo expects decline in Switch sales, plans to switch from family sharing to one console per person”

After selling 23 million Switch consoles in the previous year and 18 million consoles last year (FY 2023), Nintendo expects Switch sales to continue to decline, and predicts that only 15 million Switch will be sold next year (FY 2024) host. Nintendo is not even very confident about 15 million units. Company President Shuntaro Furukawa said that it will be “difficult” for the Switch console, which has entered its seventh year, to maintain its momentum, and the goal of selling 15 million units is “a bit of a struggle.”

In order to achieve the goal, Nintendo’s plan is to change the Switch from “family sharing” to “one per person”, so that each family has more than one console, but multiple. Switch sales in the last quarter were 3.06 million units, half of which were OLED models. This is the worst-selling season of the Switch so far, but it is basically within Nintendo’s expectations. Switch has sold more than 125 million units in total in the past six years, making it the third best-selling host in history. Basically, the market is almost completely saturated. Even if there are still people who want to buy it, they are probably waiting for the next generation of products, right?

For the full fiscal year (fiscal year 2023), Nintendo’s turnover was 1.601 trillion yen, a decrease of approximately 5.5% from the previous year’s 1.695 trillion yen. Profits fell by 14.9% to 500.4 billion yen.