Nearly 6 million Switch 2s sold in one month

Japanese video game pioneer Nintendo more than doubled its revenue (+132.1%) year-on-year in the first quarter of its staggered fiscal year, following the record start achieved by its new Switch 2 console, launched on June 5. The device sold 5.82 million units in June, according to Nintendo, which previously announced it had sold 3.5 million units worldwide in just four days, a record.

"Figures from around the world show that there was unprecedented underlying demand, and this record may never be broken by another console again," Serkan Toto of Tokyo-based Kantan Games told AFP. Nintendo, however, kept its financial forecasts and modest console sales targets unchanged for the full fiscal year ending March 2026, still forecasting 15 million units.

The Kyoto-based firm (western Japan) can reasonably expect to sell 23.5 million copies during this period, however, JPMorgan analysts estimated in July.

The Switch 2 is expected to significantly boost Nintendo's results in the 2025/26 financial year, although the impact of console sales on profitability is less than that of games, on which the margin is higher, adds Nathan Baidu of Bloomberg Intelligence.

Nintendo has so far seen its net profit for the full April-June quarter increase by 18.6% to 96 billion yen (558 million euros), and its operating profit increase by 4.4%. "Console sales volume is expected to gradually decline from 2026/27, but remain at high levels in the long term.

On the other hand, game sales volume (including older titles) should climb" as more "mainstream" players buy the console, estimated Junko Yamamura in a recent JPMorgan note. Major console exclusives are still rare. The game "Mario Kart World," available from its debut, was joined in mid-July by "Donkey Kong Bananza," critically acclaimed with a score of 91 on the review aggregator Metacritic, making it one of the highest-rated games of 2025.