Takashi Mochizuki and Debby Wu:
Nintendo plans to increase production of its six-year-old Switch console in the coming fiscal year after shipping roughly 21 million Switch consoles in the year ending March, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Kyoto-based company had lowered its sales forecast for the console to 19 million units in November because of component shortages, but is now convinced it can make more and demand remains strong, said the people, asking not to be named because the discussions aren’t public. The move to increase output is an unexpected measure at a late stage in the console’s lifecycle.
It is wild that a console which came out in early 2017 is not only still going strong, but is ramping. It was never even meant to compete in terms of sheer gaming power with the likes of the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 — the last generation of consoles for Microsoft and Sony, respectively — and now it’s competing against the Xbox Series X and S (ridiculous naming) and the Playstation 5 — consoles which themselves are now over two years old.
This is, of course, not about the power of the machines, but the power of IP. Nintendo has Mario and Animal Crossing and Zelda. The latter of which is going to fuel sales in 2023 with a new title on the way. Literally no one will care that the device on which it’s playing is over six years old.¹
At the same time, could you imagine if the iPhone 7 was still the state of the art for Apple’s flagship hardware? That was the device launched the year before the iPhone X re-invigorated the line. That feels like forever ago because it was. It’s all relative, but it’s still wild.²
Meeting Nintendo’s 19-million-unit sales target for this fiscal year and going above that in the next one would bring the Switch into the rarefied territory near 150 million lifetime sales — a mark surpassed only by Sony Group Corp.’s PlayStation 2 among home consoles to date.
The Nintendo 64, which is top of mind this week thanks to the re-release of GoldenEye 007 on the Switch (and Xbox), sold 33 million units in its entire lifespan. The Sega Genesis? 35 million. Super Nintendo? Just under 50 million. Gaming is bigger now, of course. But what Nintendo has done with the Switch is truly incredible. Especially coming off the heels of the Wii U, which sold 13.5 million units a decade ago.³
Curious where Nintendo goes from here. But the Switch has been such a homerun that I probably wouldn’t overthink it. Take the Switch. Take some 2024 (presumably) components. Boom. Switch 2. Switch II? SwIItch?
¹ Yes, it got a slight refresh in mid-2019 with a slightly upgraded chip (see: below) and a new ‘Lite’ form factor (and price). An OLED model, with an upgraded screen and more storage, came in mid-2021.
² The Switch is using an NVIDIA Tegra X1 chip (an ARM Cortex-A57). It was made using a 20nm process. 20nm! The latest Apple Silicon which will launch this year will be made using 3nm. Even the upgraded Switch is using 16nm. Can you imagine the improvements a Switch 2 would see in power and battery life if they move to even just a 7nm chip?
³ I had all-but written them off after this and other blunders. My bad. Still, how do they avoid someone coming for this IP eventually?
