Nintendo recently provided updated sales figures for the Nintendo Switch and a number of its first party releases. As of December 31, the console has shipped over 122.55 million units worldwide, which means it has now officially overtaken the lifetime sales of the PS4- though as has been the case with most hardware, the Switch has seen a slowdown in sales over the course of the fiscal period.
In its latest quarterly fiscal report, the company stated that it has shipped 14.91 million units of the Switch in the current fiscal year’s first three quarters, which is down 21.3% year-on-year. Meanwhile, total software sales for the same period stand at 172.11 million units, down 4% from last year. Nintendo attributes these declines (for hardware sales in particular) to “a shortage of semiconductors and other component supplies that impacted production until around late summer.”
As such, in its financial presentation, the company has also confirmed that its lowering forecasts for both software and hardware sales for the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31. The company now expects total shipments for the Switch to hit 18 million units for the fiscal year, which is down 5.3% from its previous forecast of 19 million unis. Meanwhile, it has also lowered its software sales forecast for the period by 2.4% to 205 million.
Whether this affects Nintendo’s forecast for the upcoming fiscal year remains to be seen, especially given that supply shortages have eased up significantly over the last few months. A recent report also claimed that the company has decided to increase Switch production and is expecting sustained sales for the console to continue for at least another year.