Nintendo's Switch 2 console is selling more slowly than it did a year ago, pulling the company's half-year revenue down even as higher prices lifted profit. Revenue for the six months to September came to ¥966 billion, down 12.1% from the same period a year earlier, Nintendo said on Thursday.
Operating profit rose 49.1% to ¥216.5 billion and net profit climbed 11.0% to ¥220.9 billion. Nintendo raised console prices in May, which helped offset the weaker sales.
The Switch 2 went on sale in June last year. Unit sales for April to September came to 6.49 million, down 37.4% from a year earlier, as the console's second year on the market brought a weaker comparison with its launch.
Price rises and a rush to buy
Nintendo raised the domestic price of the console by ¥10,000 in May, and by $50 (about ¥8,000) in the US and Europe, in stages, as prices for semiconductor memory and other key components climbed. Buyers rushed in ahead of the increase, but the higher prices appear to have weighed on sales to some degree.
For the full year to March 2027, Nintendo is targeting 16.5 million units. With prices up and few big new titles in the pipeline, a large jump in sales looks unlikely.
“Reaching it may be difficult.”Jai Yi Jia, analyst at UBS Securities, UBS Securities
President Shuntaro Furukawa told a press conference the same day that the result would depend heavily on how the year-end shopping season goes.
“It will be greatly affected by sales trends in the year-end shopping season. We want to keep getting the word out.”Shuntaro Furukawa, Nintendo president