Nintendo Revenues Surge on Mario and Zelda Sales

Nintendo reported that it earned a net income of ¥94.5 billion on revenues of ¥334.9 billion for the quarter ending September 30. (About $630 million and $2.2 billion in USD, respectively.)

The results were better than expected, with the firm crediting the most recent games in its Mario and Zelda franchises. Nintendo raised its full-year financial forecast, though its prediction for Switch console sales in the current quarter remains unchanged.

“Sales in the first half of the fiscal year were the largest since the launch of Nintendo Switch,” a Nintendo statement reads, referring to the previous six months (two quarters). “The Switch is different from past hardware,” Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa added in the post-earnings conference call. “It has the ability to give rise to different kinds of new demand.”

Nintendo sold 2.93 million Switch consoles in the quarter, bringing the total Switch sales figure to 132.46 million units. Of that, 1.86 million were OLED units, compared to 610,000 for the standard Switch and 460,000 for Switch Lite.

Additionally, Switch software has now sold a total of 1.13 billion units cumulatively. The top game sales for the console cumulatively are Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (57 million units), Animal Crossing: New Horizons (43.38 million), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (32.44 million), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (31.14 million), and Super Mario Odyssey (26.95 million)

And Nintendo continues to benefit from a halo effect of sorts from the unusually popular Super Mario Bros. movie that was released last Spring. While its “ordinary” and digital revenues both fell year-over-year (YOY), 19 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively, its revenues from mobile/IP (movies) jumped 184 percent YOY to $154 million.