Topic: Nintendo Announces Third Quarter Financial Results: Switch Officially Outships Wii U

[Shaymin]

The pass we've all been waiting for.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/46327/nintendo-announces-third-quarter-financial-results-switch-officially-outships-wii-u

The Switch has passed its first target.

Nintendo has released their results for the 3rd quarter of fiscal 2017 (ending December 31), and have officially confirmed lifetime shipments of the Switch of 14.86 million units to pass the Wii U's 13.56m lifetime shipments. It is now the fastest selling home console by units shipped in company history, passing the sales of the Wii (13.17m) for the same timeframe.

Other items of note from the release are below.

Financial Inidcators

Through the first nine months of the fiscal year, Nintendo's net income (profit) was 194.563 bn yen (approximately US$1.79bn, assuming current market rate of US$1 = ¥108.7). This was on sales of 857 bn yen ($7.8bn) and was buoyed by an operating profit of 156.452 bn yen ($1.44bn).

Nintendo's mobile revenue was ¥29.1bn/~$267.6m, while profit from related companies was ¥16.781bn/~$154.3m. Download sales were ¥49.1bn/~$396.4m, approximately 5.7% of sales.

As a result, Nintendo has had to raise their guidance for full year sales, operating profit and net profit. PDF link

Hardware Shipments

Switch: 7.01m in the third quarter, 14.86m life to date.

3DS family: 3.01m in the third quarter, 71.99m LTD.

Mini systems (SNES Classic/Super Famicom Classic): No numbers provided, but sales were described as "a hit".

Amiibo sales: 9.3m figures in the quarter.

Software Performance

Super Mario Odyssey was the major title of the third quarter, shipping 9.07m copies, while on the 3DS side Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon shipped 7.17m copies. Other notable shipment numbers include.eight Switch titles (7 Nintendo games + Mario and Rabbids Kingdom Battle) shipping over a million copies, including Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is at 7.33m, Breath of the Wild 6.78m on Switch + Wii U sales (not revealed) and Splatoon 2 at 4.95m.

Release Schedules

The schedules for both 3DS and Switch releases in the Americas, Europe, and Japan are in the gallery attached below. Notable games without dates include Switch renditions of Fire Emblem (2018), Pokémon ("2018 or later") and Metroid Prime (TBA).

[Lemonade]

Its amazing that Switch actually managed to outsell Wii U in less than a year. It makes me sad for Wii U though, I really like that system. Too bad no one else did.

Nice to see 3DS still selling well. I would like to see it pass GBA sales, but it needs another 10 million for that, which seems unlikely to happen.

[Adrock]

What a difference having competent hardware and consistent software makes.

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed my time with Wii U. I have a decent selection of games, many of which I would double dip to have on Switch.

/pours another 40 oz on the curb for Wii U

[Soren]

9 million in 3 months for Mario Odyssey is insane yo.

[lolmonade]

Its amazing that Switch actually managed to outsell Wii U in less than a year. It makes me sad for Wii U though, I really like that system. Too bad no one else did.

There are dozens of us!  Dozens!


My kids have actually been using my Switch more than I have lately to play MarioKart.  Not to imply there's nothing to play on Switch, especially after dumping so much of my life into Zelda, Mario, and indies on it in the past year.




I hope they don't shutter the eshop for the Wii U anytime soon.  There are some hidden gems there that I want my wife and I to play through.

[ShyGuy]

Wii U was a pioneer! Long live the Wii U!

[Order.RSS]

Wii U 2020!

[Ian Sane]

This really shows how poorly the Wii U did but it also makes it all the more impressive that Nintendo was able to bounch back so well with the Switch!  I'm reminded of the time when the 3DS was originally not selling very well and the Wii U had all the third parties bailing after an initial poor launch and the "Nintendo is doomed!" routine actually seemed very legitimate.  Considering the Switch has outshipped the Wii U in merely a year it makes me wonder how long Nintendo actually made Wii U's and that probably explains why they never dropped the price, because they never had a chance to tweak the process to manufacturer them cheaper.

It also goes to show that Nintendo does make games people actually want and that their failures are largely do to  self-inflicted flaws in their systems.  They made a system with a minimum of "please understand" problems and suddenly they're selling like hot cakes.

Now how much credit is owed to Tatsumi Kimishima?  We get a new president and Nintendo goes from a huge flop to a comeback success.  Iwata set the groundwork for the Switch concept but I wonder if the faster output of releases is Kimishima's doing since Nintendo never was good at that during Iwata's tenure.

[Adrock]

Most if not all of Switch’s lineup thus far started development as Wii U titles. I don’t mean to take anything away from Kimishima, but I also don’t want to give him undo credit. Besides a few outliers (e.g. Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash), Nintendo rarely rushes games out. Kimishima likely left it up to Miyamoto and the developers to decide when the games were ready. Switch benefited from good timing and a couple of relatively quick enhanced ports.

[Luigi Dude]

Now how much credit is owed to Tatsumi Kimishima?  We get a new president and Nintendo goes from a huge flop to a comeback success.  Iwata set the groundwork for the Switch concept but I wonder if the faster output of releases is Kimishima's doing since Nintendo never was good at that during Iwata's tenure.

The Wii had an amazing first 1.5 year and that was all under Iwata's watch.  The reason they got away with that is the same reason they've been able to on the Switch.  Many of those early Wii games started on the Gamecube or easily reused the Gamecube engine of their predecessor for faster development.  What eventually hurt the Wii was they were trying balance out DS support as well and eventually started shifting to the 3DS and the Wii U.  The Wii U was hurt by Nintendo being unprepared for HD development as well as giving the 3DS more support because the handheld market was more important to them and they made the decision after it's poor launch that that was going to be the system they would do everything they could to make a success.

The Switch on the other hand shouldn't face this same problem since they've nearly stopped 3DS support and will soon or maybe already have full support from all of Nintendo's studio's.  Plus it'll benefit from Nintendo unifying many of it's development teams which is something Iwata himself started back in 2013 after seeing they couldn't support the Wii U and 3DS properly at the same time.  This unification is another reason for said faster development output now as well.

Now Kimishima deserves credit for properly staying the course but the Switch benefited greatly from things Iwata set in motion which allowed for the type of release schedule the system could enjoy.