Nintendo expects to sell fewer Switches than planned as new model looms

Nintendo was prepared to suck it up financially this year as sales of its aging Switch decline, but things are going a bit worse than it hoped. After selling fewer consoles than it expected over the last two quarters (4.72 million compared to 6.84 million last year), the company has downgraded its sales forecast from 13.5 million consoles to 12.5 million — a cool one million unit drop. The company also lowered its sales forecast by 5.2 percent to 1.28 trillion yen ($8.41 billion), thought it expects the same net profit as last year.

The company saw decent financials last fiscal year (ending in March 2024) despite the fact that the Switch was first released in 2017. It achieved that largely through the release of the much-anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game and to a lesser extent, the launch ...