Nintendo’s Q1 2025 financial report has been released, and the numbers regarding hardware sales aren’t too surprising overall. Nintendo Switch sales have decreased significantly, with 2024 being their lowest year. This quarter of the fiscal year, they sold 2.1 million Nintendo Switches between April 1 and June 30, a significant decrease of 46%.
Their total net sales are down by 46.5%, to 246.6 billion Yen, compared to 461.3 billion Yen during the first quarter of 2024’s fiscal year. Their operating profit decreased by a significant 70.6%, with ordinary profit dipping by 55.3%. However, this most likely doesn’t come as a surprise to most people.
With the Nintendo Switch being seven years old, it is not surprising that sales are starting to drop significantly. Both their dedicated video game platforms, mobile games, and IP-related income experienced severe drops. Consolidated hardware sales dropped by 46.4%, with mobile and other IP-related incomes dropping by 53.8%.
Nintendo acknowledges the overall drop in mobile and IP-related sales, saying it’s “mainly due to the decrease in income from visual content related to The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”
That said, they made a 42.8% profit on other sales, such as merchandise from official Nintendo stores and playing cards, which brought their sales up from 1.9 billion Yen to 2.8 billion Yen.
All of the Nintendo Switch models suffered a significant blow to sales. The original Nintendo Switch suffered the least with a drop of 18.4%, with Nintendo Switch Lite sales dropping by 56.1% and Nintendo Switch OLED Model sales dropping by 46.3%
Looking at their software sales, two of their IPs were on top for selling over a million units. These two games were Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. One other title reached a million units, but it is not disclosed in the financial report as to which game that is.
Sales are drastically different from the previous fiscal year’s first quarter. Last year saw the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which also saw special edition Nintendo Switches released to celebrate the release. Alongside Zelda, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released, which boosted sales massively.
Overall, the sell-through in this fiscal year is below the level of previous years. Despite that, sales for Princess Peach: Showtime! and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remained stable. However, these two games combined don’t match the amount of sell-through sales Nintendo made with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Princess Peach: Showtime! and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door account for approximately half of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s sales.
Nintendo has a jam-packed year for game releases, so it’s possible the next quarter of the fiscal year will be better for them, with games such as The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Super Mario Party Jamboree being released.
