Nintendo Co.’s Switch, a new hybrid game machine that works as both a console and a tablet, is selling well, helping the Kyoto-based company behind the Super Mario and Pokemon franchises trim its quarterly losses.
p
Nintendo said Thursday it has sold 2.74 million Switch machines [pictured above] and 5.46 million units of Switch software since sales began in March. It had expected to sell 2 million Switch machines by the end of March.
p
The company anticipates selling another 10 million Switch machines in the fiscal year that ends in March 2018.
p
The company’s January-March loss was 394 million yen ($3.5 million), improved from a 24 billion yen loss a year earlier. Quarterly sales jumped to nearly 178 billion yen ($1.6 billion) from 79 billion yen.
p
Nintendo has lagged amid competition from smartphones, and also at times has been slammed by an unfavorable exchange rate. A strong yen cheapens the value of overseas earnings of Japanese exporters like Nintendo.
p
In the fiscal year that ended in March, Nintendo’s profit jumped more than six times from the previous fiscal year to 102.6 billion yen ($924 million), up from 16.5 billion yen.
p
But that result included extraordinary income from the sale of part of Nintendo’s stake in the Seattle Mariners.
p
Nintendo, which also makes the 3DS portable console, is projecting its profit for the fiscal year through March 2018 at 45 billion yen ($405 million).
p
Nintendo said the Switch was off to a promising start, with consumer demand strong for its The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch games.
p
Many new machines do well initially as hard-core fans tend to buy them. Then sales taper off. So the test for Nintendo is how long the momentum will persist.
p
It is promising Switch games that include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which goes on sale in April, ARMS, in June and Splatoon…