Nintendo Investor Briefing (Oct. 2018): Nintendo Switch Online, digital sales

During the latest Nintendo Investor Briefing, Shuntaro Furukawa (the new president of the company) talked about Nintendo Switch Online and digital sales as a whole.

Nintendo Switch Online was launched last month, and so far, it’s all gone according to Nintendo’s expectations. However, there is one thing they did not see coming: more than half of total subscribers have decided to go with a 12 month plan (Family or Individual plan), which is more than what they were anticipating. It looks like the lower price-point compared to similar subscriptions on other platforms helped.

Unfortunately, Nintendo did not say how many users ended up getting a Nintendo Switch Online subscription…

Next: digital sales. The chart below shows the evolution of digital sales over the past few years:

Digital sales were already steadily growing (though with a big drop in Fiscal Year 2016-17), but with the launch of the Nintendo Switch, they literally exploded. During the first half of the current Fiscal Year, sales reached a record high, and it’s highly unlikely the same will not happen for the full year.

According to Nintendo, the increase in digital sales is mostly due to the increase in demand for the digital version of games on Nintendo Switch: those represent 60% of total digital sales (which was already the case last year). And since there’s more and more games available on the platform, sales are also on the rise. But it’s not just retail games: sales for download-only and DLC are also increasing.