Nintendo Switch Sales Plummet Ahead of Its Successor

nintendo switch As it nears the end of its cycle with each passing day, the market is starting to give important signals that it is eagerly awaiting its successor. Over the past few hours, the Japanese manufacturer has reported that sales of its current console fell by 46.3% year-on-year. in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.

Between April 1 and June 30, the Japanese company sold 2.10 million Nintendo Switch unitsThis is a significant decline from the same period last year, when 3.91 million units were sold.

Of the total consoles sold in the first fiscal quarter of 2025, 1.24 million units were the Nintendo Switch OLED. Meanwhile, the standard and Lite versions sold 530,000 and 330,000 units, respectively.

Nintendo says Switch sales are down not because of a loss of interest, but because normalization of numbers after the first quarter of 2024, in which they were much higher than usual due to interest in Super Mario Bros. Movie And The Legend of Zelda: Tears of a Kingdomwhich had allegorical versions of the console.

“There were no such special factors in the first quarter of this fiscal year, and as the Nintendo Switch has been in its eighth year since its launch, sales of both hardware and software have declined significantly,” the Japanese firm said.

Switch Sales Fall, But Nintendo Keeps Full-Year Guidance

Despite a more than 46% year-over-year decline, Nintendo is not changing its full-year guidance for the Switch. The company remains expects to sell 13.5 million units of the console until the end of the 2025 financial year, which ends on March 31 next year. It remains to be seen whether that will hold true when the second- or third-quarter financial results are announced.

In addition to the steep decline in hardware sales, something similar happened with software. In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, Nintendo shipped 30.64 million copies of Switch games. That means a year-on-year decline of 41.3% compared to the first quarter of 2024, when 52.21 million units were sold.

This is a response to the lack of such a strong name as Tears of the Kingdomwhich sold over 10 million units in its first three days alone. By comparison, the best-selling Nintendo Switch game in Q1 2025 was Paper Mario: Ancient Doorfrom “only” 1.76 million units.

All this, apparently, lays the foundations for the transition to nintendo switch 2. The next console will be announced in the current financial year, the Asian company confirmed. However, no specific information has been provided on this matter yet. Some rumors pointed to a possible announcement in September or October of this year, with the prospect of its launch in 2025. However, this has not been confirmed. The only thing that is real at the moment is that the device will be revealed. until March 31 of next year.