After eight years as one of the best gaming consoles on the market, it seems that the sales for the Nintendo Switch are finally slowing down. While that will ultimately still result in a strong year heading into 2025, it also shows that more people than ever are ready for a successor to the popular handheld-console hybrid.
Nintendo just cut back its profit forecast for the current fiscal year, according to Reuters. The Japanese tech company lowered the number of Switch consoles it expects to sell for the year by 7 percent. It also expects to sell 160 million units of software over the year, about 3 percent less than it originally anticipated.
The hardware expectations paint the starkest picture of the company’s two adjustments. The new projections show that the Switch is expected to sell about 20 percent less than it did last year. While this all could sound gloomy from a certain point of view, there’s good reason for the success the aging console found in 2023. For one, The Legend Of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, one of the year’s biggest releases and a Switch exclusive, likely boosted sales. 2023 was also the year Nintendo broke box office records with a Mario film, spurring increased interest in Nintendo’s extensive library of games featuring everyone’s favorite Italian plumber.
Even with Nintendo selling fewer consoles than expected a year later, the company is still performing decently.
“For a platform in its eighth year in the market, both hardware and software enjoy stable demand and brisk sales,” Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa reassured during an online press conference.
Nintendo’s slight decline in hardware sales shows that people are ready for a Switch successor. Since its release in 2017, the Switch has become one of the best game consoles of all time. Its versatility as both a home console and a handheld makes it appealing to all age groups. It’s also had eight years to build a staggering library of great games spanning several generations. The Switch is currently within striking distance of surpassing Sony’s PlayStation 2 as the current best-selling console of all time.
However, realistically there is a ceiling to how many consoles Nintendo can sell this late in the Switch lifecycle. For one, the Switch hasn’t seen a proper price drop in the U.S. since it launched. There’s also the fact that the Switch has more competitors these days than ever before. Devices like Valve’s Steam Deck and ASUS’s ROG Allys offer the same portable functionality of a Switch with a little more power under the hood. For gamers who want to play more modern releases like Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, or Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it makes more sense to buy one of these competitors or wait it out for Nintendo’s offering.
Nintendo has already confirmed that a Switch successor is on the way. However, company analysts dampened expectations.
“Making an announcement this year has gotten quite difficult,” Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda told Reuters. “You would not want to divert attention to an upcoming console in the middle of the critical year-end shopping season.”
Despite the Switch being on its way out, it’s still going incredibly strong in terms of new releases. 2024 saw a new Zelda game, a Princess Peach game, a new Mario Party, and even more niche titles like Emio - The Smiling Man. Heading into the new year, even more is on the way, including the long-awaited fourth installment of Metroid Prime, as well as the long overdue Switch port of the beloved Wii-U game Xenoblade Chronicles X.
