Nintendo Switch has officially gone past the 150 million units mark.
Nintendo revealed in their latest financial report that the Switch 2 has sold 150.86 million units. As reported by GoNintendo, this is actually lower than their sales forecast, and it also represents a drop in units sold compared to the same period last year.
Nintendo reported that they sold 9.54 million units in the three quarters of this financial year, which is 30.6 % lower than the 13.74 million units they sold in the same period of time last year.
Of course, fans are interested in these numbers for two reasons. As Sony recently revised their own sales figures to reveal that they sold 160 million units of the PlayStation 2 console, fans have been clamoring to see if the Switch will be the console to unseat it from the vaunted position of the best-selling console of all time.
As we had pointed out before, Nintendo’s primary concern will be profitability. So as much prestige they would earn from taking this record from Sony, if the Switch reaches a point where it loses too much money that it isn’t worth selling anymore, Nintendo will discontinue sales of the device.
And that dovetails into the other factor. It’s pretty clear that the Switch’s lowering sales has come about in anticipation of its successor, the Switch 2. Nintendo has released an official announcement video, but without the usual fanfare, and lacking a lot of information on the device.
One would argue that Nintendo was forced to make the announcement because leakers had revealed too much of the console already. Whatever the case, the situation now is that we don’t know enough about the Switch 2 yet for consumers to be able to clearly say they will no longer buy the original Switch for it.
For their part, Nintendo says they still hope to be able to sell the Switch in the near future. While some fans and games media have dismissed the idea, it should raise questions about the Switch 2 itself.
Will the Switch 2 be too pricey for most consumers at launch? Will there be supply issues in spite of Nintendo’s best efforts? Will there still be more Switch than Switch 2 games in the new console’s first year? And for that matter, will the new situation surrounding US tariffs affect this console launch?
If things get too hot for the Switch 2, it would objectively be true that Nintendo can fall back on the Switch, which still has a lot of physical hardware and software circulating in the US market right now. The past few weeks have added a lot of uncertainty to plans laid for over five years now, but Nintendo still has some cards to play.
