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Nintendo posts $958M profit but cuts Switch target despite strong Christmas sales
Nintendo has cut its ambitious annual Switch sales forecast despite enjoying a strong Christmas Q3 quarter.
The Japanese games giant recorded a 104.21 billion JPY ($958 million) net profit on revenue of 608.39 billion JPY ($5.59 billion) between October and December 2018. Revenue was up 26 percent year-on-year, which is an impressive feature given that quarter was a successful one for Nintendo, yielding its biggest operating profit in a Q3 for eight years.
The Nintendo Switch is now closing down on lifetime sales of the N64. Nintendo shifted a record 9.41 million consoles during the three-month period, up 30 percent annually, to take it to 14.49 million this financial year, which began in April 2018. However, despite a success last quarter, likely helped in no small amount by Christmas, Nintendo has trimmed its ambitious goal to sell 20 million Switch units this financial year. Instead, the target is 17 million, which means it is estimating around 2.5 million sales during January, February and March.
In terms of games, a bunch of new releases performed well in the last quarter. Pokémon: Let’s Go sold million titles since its November release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 12.08 million since its December launch and Super Mario Party, released in October, reached 5.3 million sales. Total game sales jumped by 101 percent to reach 94.64 million sales during the period.
Nintendo’s retro consoles — the NES Classic and Super NES Classic — sold 5.83 million. But there is bad news for Nintendo loyalists, the upcoming Mario Kart Tour mobile game won’t ship in March — its revised launch date is this summer.
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Nintendo’s Mario Kart mobile game won’t launch until the summer
It’s been a long year for Nintendo fans waiting on Mario Kart Tour to come to mobile and, unfortunately, more patience is required after the game’s launch was moved back to this summer.
Nintendo announced plans to bring the much-loved franchise to smartphones one year ago. It was originally slated to launch by the end of March 2019, but the Japanese games giant said today it is pushing that date back to summer 2019.
The key passage sits within Nintendo’s latest earnings report, released today, which explains that additional time is needed “to improve [the] quality of the application and expand the content offerings after launch.”
The checkered flag has been raised and the finish line is near. A new mobile application is now in development: Mario Kart Tour! #MarioKartTour Releasing in the fiscal year ending in March 2019. pic.twitter.com/8GIyR7ZM4z
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 1, 2018
It’s frustrating but, as The Verge points out, you can refer to a famous Nintendo phrase if you are seeking comfort.
Shigeru Miyamoto, who created the Mario and Zelda franchises, once remarked that “a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”
There’s plenty riding on the title — excuse the pun. Super Mario Run, the company’s first major game for the iPhone, showed its most popular IP has the potential to be a success on mobile, even though Mario required a $9.99 payment to go beyond the limited demo version. Mario Kart is the most successful Switch title to date, so it figures that it can be a huge smash on mobile if delivered in the right way.
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Nintendo announces raft of new and retro titles for Switch (plus new Mario outfits)
The Switch is getting a bevy of new games that should appeal to a broad variety of players, Nintendo announced today in one of its “Direct” videos. A new Mario Tennis game, updates to Odyssey, some classics and indies, and perhaps most unexpectedly, Dark Souls: Remastered. Read More
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Mario Bear has come to save 2017
It’s been a long year – it feels like it actually spanned about 50, in fact. But now, at the end, some relief: Mario Bear.
Yes, it’s just a bear from Build-A-Bear Workshop. And a ‘brand collaboration,’ that horrific thing that usually just means some executives get a larger Christmas bonus and more people are convinced to part with their hard-earned money for… Read More
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Super Mario Odyssey is the US’s fastest-selling Mario of all time
Nintendo’s having a good year, and it looks like the latest Mario is set to make it even better. Super Mario Odyssey is the fastest-selling Mario ever, in the U.S. at least, breezing past a million sales in under five days here and selling more than 2 million worldwide — and counting. Read More
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Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aimé on the evolution of Super Mario Odyssey
From the outside, at least, Nintendo is a study in contradictions, at once devoted to the constant development of new gaming experiences, while remaining deferential and staunchly loyal to its past. Super Mario Odyssey is a masterpiece of twists and turns
It’s almost unnerving how good Nintendo is at its job — at least, when the wizards there choose to apply themselves. Super Mario Odyssey is a embarrassment of riches, never failing to surprise for hours and hours and maintaining an unflaggingly positive feeling the entire time. It’s an essential for all Switch owners, and highly recommended for any gamer with a heart and a… Read More
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Super Mario Run is officially making its way to Android, as Nintendo promised what seems like so long ago. The company has now revealed an exact date for Mario’s Android debut: March 23. That’s this Thursday, in case you’re bad at math or don’t have a calendar handy.