Switch 2 Smashes Early Sales Records in Nintendo’s Latest Quarterly Report
Nintendo’s quarterly financial statement, which covers results through September 30, leaves little doubt: the Switch 2 has delivered an extraordinary launch.
Nintendo reports that the console sold 10.36 million units in the four months following its June 5 release. That pace is roughly double the original Switch’s performance over the same timeframe (4.7 million). For context, the PlayStation 5 moved 7.8 million units across its first two quarters and required eight months to hit 10 million, making it Sony’s fastest-selling console at the time.
Buoyed by the strong start, Nintendo has raised its full-year forecast for Switch 2 sales from 15 million to 19 million units. If achieved, that would make Switch 2 Nintendo’s biggest first-year seller, edging past the Game Boy Advance (18.1 million).
Market analysts — many of whom viewed Nintendo’s initial projection as conservative — believe the company may still be underestimating demand. The second half of the fiscal year includes the critical holiday shopping window and does not yet reflect the release impact of Pokémon Legends: Z-A. “Since sales in the second half of the year — which includes the Christmas shopping season — almost never fall below those of the first half, there is a strong likelihood that Nintendo will revise upward again,” Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda told Bloomberg.
Software numbers are equally impressive. Launch title Mario Kart World has sold 9.57 million copies, an attach rate of 92% with Switch 2; roughly 8.1 million of those sales came as bundle purchases. Donkey Kong Bananza has moved 3.49 million units.
The original Nintendo Switch remains a seller, albeit at a slower clip — Nintendo trimmed its forecast for that system from 4.5 million to 4 million units for the year. It also sits tantalizingly close to surpassing the Nintendo DS’s lifetime total: the Switch was reported just 10,000 units shy of the DS’s 154.02 million lifetime sales (154.01 million versus 154.02 million) as of the report date. That means an official “best-selling” title for Nintendo will have to wait for the next financial update, though additional sales since September 30 may have already closed the gap.
Whether the Switch family can ultimately challenge the PlayStation 2’s all-time record of 160 million units remains uncertain — unlikely, perhaps, but still within the realm of possibility depending on momentum through the holiday season and beyond.
Source: Polygon
