Nintendo Switch Crosses 111 Million Units Sold, But Overall Sales Are Down

Nintendo released its latest round of financial results, this time for Quarter 1 of the Fiscal Year 2023, which makes up the months of April, May, and June of 2022. While hardware sales of the base Switch, the OLED model, and the Switch Lite have surpassed 111 million units sold, sales are down nearly 23% overall. 

More specifically, hardware sales for Nintendo are down 22.9% this quarter. Broken up, the base Switch’s sales are down 60% in Q1 while Switch Lite sales are down 48.4%. Nintendo did not report OLED model Switch sales, possibly because it groups the OLED model with the base Switch. As for why hardware sales are down this quarter, Nintendo sites the ongoing semiconductor shortage, which affects other hardware makers like Xbox and PlayStation too. 

“Unit sales for the entire Nintendo Switch family of systems declined by 22.9% year-on-year to 3.43 million units,” Nintendo’s results read in comparison to 4.45 million units sold this time last year. “In the first quarter of last fiscal year, titles from other software publishers helped drive hardware sales, particularly in Japan, but with the semiconductor shortage affecting production this first quarter, unit sales of hardware declined year-on-year.” 

Software is down for Nintendo, too, declining 8.6% this quarter. It hit 41.41 million software units sold in Q1 of FY23, which is down from 45.29 million units this time last year. 

“Regarding software sales, Nintendo Switch Sports and Mario Strikers: Battle League, both released this quarter, are off to a strong start, and sales of evergreen titles such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continued steady, but overall software sales did not keep pace with the strong showing of the first quarter of last fiscal year and totaled 41.41 million units, down by 8.6% year-on-year.” 

Despite declines mostly across the board, Nintendo says it is making no changes to its consolidated financial forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, which was announced on May 10, 2022. 

“Due to delays in the procurement of components such as semiconductors this year, we have not been able to conduct production as planned,” the results read. “However, we expect procurement to gradually improve from late summer towards autumn, giving us a clearer outlook regarding production for the remaining calendar year. In preparation for the holiday season, we will leverage appropriate means of shipment, and work to deliver as many Nintendo Switch systems as possible to consumers in every region.”

With the Switch having surpassed 111 million units sold, it doesn’t beat out any previous Nintendo consoles. When Nintendo released its latest financial results prior to today’s, it revealed the Switch had sold 103 million units, surpassing the Wii’s lifetime sales, putting it behind only the Game Boy and Nintendo DS. At 111 million units sold, it’s still behind the Game Boy’s 118.69 million and the DS’ 154.02 million. While the DS still seems quite far away, the Switch is likely to surpass the Game Boy at some point in the future.