'Zelda' sales breakout juices Nintendo's aging Switch
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[August 03, 2023] By
Sam Nussey
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's Nintendo on Thursday said it sold 3.91 million
units of its Switch console in the April-June quarter, exceeding sales
in the same period a year earlier, boosted by the runaway success of its
latest "Zelda" title.
Investor sentiment has been buoyed by the breakout success of the "The
Super Mario Bros. Movie", which leads this year's global box office
ranking, and praise for video game "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the
Kingdom" which went on sale in May.
Nintendo said it sold 18.51 million units of "Tears of the Kingdom" in
the first quarter. The game has a score of 96 out of 100 on reviews
aggregator Metacritic, indicating universal acclaim.
Sales in its business related to mobile and intellectual property
tripled to 31.8 billion yen ($221.46 million) due to the success of the
"Mario" movie, Nintendo said, which has also helped drive sales of games
featuring the moustachioed plumber.
The results underscore Nintendo's success in extending the life of the
aging Switch system, which has sold almost 130 million units, and using
its roster of popular characters to boost revenue beyond the core gaming
business.
The market is focused on the timing of a potential successor for the
hybrid home-portable Switch, which has received incremental updates
including a handheld-only version but is now in its seventh year on the
market.
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![](../images/080323PIX/busine4.jpg)
Attendees use a Nintendo Switch game
console while playing a video game at the Paris Games Week (PGW), a
trade fair for video games in Paris, France, October 29, 2019.
REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Aug/03/images/ads/current/zachs_quarter_FAIR_2023.png)
"I think they're going to ride out this fiscal year and squeeze the
last bit of juice out of this system and then establish excitement
for the new hardware sometime next year," said Serkan Toto, founder
of the Kantan Games consultancy.
The Kyoto-based gaming firm maintained its full-year forecast for
the console of 15 million units, which would be a 16.5% decline on a
year earlier.
It "is not a goal that we will be able to achieve easily," Nintendo
President Shuntaro Furukawa said in May.
First-quarter operating profit leapt 82% on a year earlier to 185.4
billion yen with sales of first-party software at record highs.
Unlike periods of thin games supply previously, Nintendo also has a
robust pipeline of titles with "Detective Pikachu Returns" and
"Super Mario Bros. Wonder" due for release later this year.
Nintendo's shares have delivered a more than three-fold return,
including dividends, since the Switch went on sale in major markets
in March 2017, outperforming the benchmark Nikkei's 91% return over
the same period.
($1 = 143.5900 yen)
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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