Nintendo reported a significant decline in sales and net profit for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, marking the eighth year of the Nintendo Switch console.
The publisher saw declines across all segments, which it attributed to the first quarter of 2025 being relatively quiet in terms of releases compared to the same period last year, which saw the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The numbers
For the three months ended June 30, 2024:
- Net sales: ¥246.6 billion (US$1.6 billion), a drop of 46.5% year-on-year
- Net profit: ¥80.9 billion (US$542.9 million), down 55.3% year-on-year
- Hardware: 2.1 million units (-46.3% less than the same period last year)
- Software: 30.6 million units (-41.3% less than the same period last year)
The interesting aspects
Sales on Nintendo platforms fell 46.4% to 229 billion yen ($1.5 billion), including hardware, software and accessories. Sales related to mobile devices and intellectual property also fell 53.8% to 14.7 billion yen ($98.6 million).
Nintendo noted that during the first quarter of the previous fiscal year, both software and hardware sales were boosted by the releases of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and The Super Mario Bros Movie.
He attributed the decline in hardware and software unit sales to there being no “special factors” like this during the first quarter of 2025, and also highlighted that the Switch is in its eighth year since launch.
Speaking of hardware, unit sales of the Switch family fell 46.3% year-over-year to 2.1 million units.
The standard model sold 530,000 units, down 18.4% compared to the 640,000 units sold during the same period last year. The Switch Lite shipped 330,000 units, down 23.3% compared to the previous figure of 430,000 units sold in the three months ending June 2023.
The OLED model was the one that sold the most during this period with 1.24 million units, but this represented a decrease of 56.1% compared to the 2.83 million units sold during the first quarter of 2024.
In terms of software, unit sales decreased 41.3% year-on-year to 30.64 million units, compared with 52.21 million units shipped last year.
Released in May, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door sold 1.76 million units, while Luigi's Mansion 2 HD sold 1.19 million units after its release in June.
Princess Peach: Showtime, which premiered during the previous fiscal year, recorded cumulative sales of more than 1.3 million units during this period.
Digital sales accounted for more than half of total software sales on the Switch during the first quarter of 2025, but fell 32.6% year-on-year to ¥80.7 billion (USD 541.3 billion) compared to ¥119.6 billion a year earlier.
However, Nintendo said that sales of download-only software and Nintendo Switch Online revenue remained stable during this period and as a result, “the proportion of digital sales has increased year-over-year.”
Nintendo also noted that 74.2% of sales were made abroad, with 44.8% of sales made in America, 25.8% in Japan and 21.3% in Europe.
Looking ahead, the publisher said there was no change to its full-year expectations, which were announced during its financial report on May 7.