It was back in May 2020, when the Switch was a little over three years old, that Nintendo first stated that it considered the console to be in the middle of its lifecycle, and it was a statement the company reiterated as recently as a couple of months ago. Now, with the Switch nearly five years old, Nintendo has double down on that stance again.
Speaking during the company’s recent earnings call (via Bloomberg), president Shuntaro Furukawa said that the Switch is still “just in the middle of its lifecycle”, and that the momentum of its sales continues to look healthy. Furukawa also added that company expects the Switch to maintain this momentum longer than past Nintendo consoles have done, which is something else the company has stressed on number of occasions.
“Switch is just in the middle of its lifecycle and the momentum going into this year is good,” Furukawa said. “The Switch is ready to break a pattern of our past consoles that saw momentum weakening in their sixth year on the market and grow further.”
As of December 31, 2021, the Switch has sold over 103.54 million units worldwide, which makes it Nintendo’s best-selling console to date. If it maintains this kind of sales momentum going into the next few years, it’ll be interesting to see where exactly it ends up- though of course, the strength of the Switch’s library and lineup of upcoming games will surely continue to drive sales as well.
Reports have claimed that a Switch successor is in the works, though Ampere analyst Piers Harding-Rolls believes Nintendo’s next console won’t be out until 2024.
Nintendo recently also provided updated sales figures for the Switch’s best-selling first party games, and a number of other recent first party releases- read more on that through here and here.