Nintendo President: Switch 15 Million Forecast for This Fiscal Year 'is a Bit of a Stretch' - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 09 May 2023 / 3,788 Views
Nintendo today released its earnings report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023 revealing lifetime shipment figures for the Nintendo Switch have reached 125.62 million units.
Nintendo has set a forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024 at 15.00 million.
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa in an earnings call with investors attended by Bloomberg said its 15 million forecast is a bit of a stretch and there's no new or upgraded hardware factored into the forecast.
"Sustaining the Switch’s sales momentum will be difficult in its seventh year," said Furukawa. "Our goal of selling 15 million unit this fiscal year is a bit of stretch. But we will do our best to bolster demand going into the holiday season so that we can achieve the goal."
If Nintendo is able to hit its forecast it would bring lifetime Switch shipment figures to 140.62 million at the end of March 2024. This would be 13.4 million behind lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Last FY they lowered their forecast twice iirc, and this makes it sounds like they're already laying the groundwork to lower the new FY forecast in future quarters.
If he's calling it a stretch, I'm interpreting that as they know they don't have enough new software to keep up the momentum. I think a price cut is in order but I'm not the one making their financial decisions.
Time for a price cut of $50 to all Switch models. In August or September after they sell all the Zelda and Pikmin 4 bundles etc.
I wonder what they have to offer for this year's holiday season... Sounds like they have at least an AA title to announce.
Sounds like a new console launch is really going to be needed by the end of 2024/early 2025.
Most likely April 2024. They were careful to say that no new hardware will release this Fiscal Year (ending March 31, 2024) but declined to comment on next fiscal year. Switch released in March 2017, so an April 2024 release would be just about right for regular console lifecycle time.
Or it was slightly mistranslated and he actually meant no new (current gen) Switch models.
haha, That is funny but no I don't think so. This is an investor meeting, so companies have to disclose things that are going to affect their revenue/profits for the fiscal year. Launching their next major console would definitely fall into that category lol. However, as I said, an April 2024 launch would mean - even with preorders (cause their revenue/profit is deferred until actual release) - that they wouldn't have to mention it yet, since it would only affect their Fiscal Year April '24 thru March '25 numbers.
they could cut the price to achieve the forecasted number
That would help, but maybe not enough to make up for the drop in hardware profitability (which is something Nintendo really values).
Price drops...
Plus a Switch TV console.
Plus more banging games.
I could see them continuing sales strongly for a long awhile.
I'm still shocked they haven't released the Switch TV version. They could add a pro controller instead of the joycons and still slash the price considerably...
A Switch TV version just seems like the most obvious thing in the world. You have the regular Switch (and OLED) that can do both, the Lite that's handheld-only, and a docked-only console. At Switch Lite pricing, but with more internal storage (and maybe two cartridge ports?) they could be sold at a profit.
Nobody has a worse track record on forecasting sales of their hardware than Nintendo. They overshoot, they undershoot, they revise. They're all over the place with their numbers. Sometimes it feels like they just pick a random number out of a hat.
So probably 12-14.5 million units sounds pretty reasonable, I would take it.
This all but confirms that a new platform is coming March 2025 or before unless Nintendo really wants to coast mainly on software sales for a long while.
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