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Thursday, February 3, 2022

December 31, 2021 Nintendo Quarterly Financial Update

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Congratulations on the milestone!

The big headline in Nintendo's financial disclosure for their third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2022—this is the big one that covers the holiday season (the important one, not the Lunar one)—is that total cumulative Nintendo Switch sales have not only passed 100 million consoles, but they've also passed the Wii's high of 101.63 million units. Yes, the Switch family (including the Nintendo Switch, the Nintendo Switch Lite, and the Nintendo Switch (OLED model)) has sold 103.54 million units as of December 31, 2021! That is the most of any Nintendo console ever. If you consider the Switch a handheld system, then it's still behind the Nintendo DS and the Game Boy, but it's weird to consider it that because it's priced as a console.

However, a bit more Wii software titles (921.85 million) have been sold than Switch software titles (766.41 million), meaning that individual Switch owners, on average, own less games than Wii owners. (This doesn't include download-only software...and that's probably a massive factor, since in any given quarter, that's very roughly a under half and over... something... of total digital sales.) But I highly doubt that situation will remain. Speaking of software sales, here's my super-biased selective chart of “below top tier” software sales:


Nintendo Switch million sellers December 31 2021 sales chart software games
There are several titles I excluded from this chart!
I mean, it's hard to even look at this thing anyway.
But shout-out to Metroid Dread.


There's a significant shake-up in the Nintendo Switch top ten software titles: Splatoon 2 is off the list, at somewhere around 13 million. Ring Fit Adventure is still on the top ten, having sold another 1.32 million copies. But what moved the list is that the combined Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl have sold a whopping 13.97 million copies. So it's likely over 14 million by now, as I'm sure we'll find out in the next financial release. But Nintendo also doesn't want to wait to talk about how much Pokémon Legends: Arceus has already sold after only a week on sale (and it's not in the financial disclosure because it released on January 28, and the disclosure only goes up to December 31 2021):



That's a super impressive number, and no wonder Nintendo wants everyone to know about it. I'm one of those 13.97 million but not one of those more than 6.5 million. Well, not yet, anyway. I certainly haven't ruled it out. (But I'm also not actually done with Shining Pearl since the last thing I did was try to fight the Elite 4 for the first time... and then the Champion pwned me with critical hits. I'll try again this weekend.) Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the single best-selling videogame ever in Japan, at over 10 million units in just Japan. (37.62 million globally.)

As for Nintendo's forecast for how January to March will play out, they've reduced their forecast by one million units for hardware sales (projected to be 23 million total) but up by twenty million units for software sales (projected to be 220 million total), which is still a net profit increase. And it's a very strong run rate for the Switch. Much, much healthier than the Wii which few were still interested in purchasing at this time in its lifespan.

Nintendo's next big major release is Kirby and the Forgotten Land at the end of March, and apparently Nintendo and HAL Laboratory are going to put a lot of effort in celebrating Kirby's 30th anniversary.

One more thing about hardware before I go:


Nintendo Switch Lite OLED Model sales status December 31 2021 holiday season
From Nintendo's helpful financial results explanatory material.


There is an article on KoopaTV with a table comparing what the FAKE NEWS media said the Nintendo Switch hardware revision would be and whether or not those claims are true. Marked as Unknown until now is the claim, “This new Switch will replace the regular Nintendo Switch (which will be discontinued) and be sold alongside the Switch Lite.” Look at the graph above of the (OLED model)'s debut quarter where you can see that, in this holiday quarter, the regular Nintendo Switch outsold the Nintendo Switch Lite and the Nintendo Switch (OLED model) combined. I don't think the regular Switch is being replaced, so I'm going to update that table with yet another False.

Oh, and because you shouldn't trust the media, KoopaTV is going to wait for the official (English) transcript from Nintendo of their investor/analyst question and answer session before commenting on that session. As we always do. I anticipate it'll be released next week, if past schedules hold true. You might read some terrible clickbait articles about what was said there. It's better to wait for the truth. Stay tuned to KoopaTV for the truth (served up with levity)!



Some titles that were excluded from KoopaTV's discussion include Game Builder Garage, which just barely became a million seller with 1.01 million units. That's because KoopaTV's staff collectively forgot that Game Builder Garage ever existed.


Here is that question and answer session a week later.
Compare to the December 31, 2020 quarterly update a year earlier.
The fiscal year is over, here's the final financial release for the year that ended March 2022!
Compare to the December 31, 2022 quarterly update a year later.

4 comments :

  1. I forgot Game Builder Garage existed too, until I saw it as one of the titles eligible for a small Nintendo Gold Points bonus a day or two ago.

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