Nintendo Investor Briefing (Oct. 2018): Nintendo Switch sales, encouraging long-term play, more

31 October 2018 Lite_Agent Nintendo Investor Briefing, Shuntaro Furukawa

During the latest Nintendo Investor Briefing, Shuntaro Furukawa (the new president of the company) talked at great lengths about the Nintendo Switch, including its sales, initiatives to encourage long-term play, and more!

The console is now in its second year, and the sales of Nintendo’s evergreen titles and brand new games are showing steady growth. As for Hardware sales, they are also pretty stable, and its momentum is continuing to build. In other words: the company is in a pretty favorable position as it enters the holiday season.

During the previous meeting, Tatsumi Kimishima talked about how important it was that Nintendo maintained engagement during the second year of the console. After all, getting people to buy your console is just the first step: you also have to make sure they keep using it and buying games for it.

To make sure users stay interested in playing on Nintendo Switch and not elsewhere, the company has understaken several initiatives:

release additional contents for games on a regular basis (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s updates, Splatoon 2’s regular map and weapon updates, Kirby Star Allies’ additional characters, and Mario Tennis Aces’ new playable characters);
hold recurring, time-limited events in-game, like the Splatfests in Splatoon 2, the Party Crash events in ARMS, and the Online Tournaments in Mario Tennis Aces;
hold real-life events like the Splatoon 2 World Championship or the Super Smash Bros Invitational at E3 2018. Those events not only allows players to test their skills in front of an audience, it’s also the occasion for fans to enjoy events related to their favourite games (even those that cannot attend them in person can watch them online thanks to livestreams).

Speaking of those real-life events, Shuntaro Furukawa talked a bit about Nintendo Live 2018, taking place next month in Japan. There will be tournaments for Splatoon 2, Mario Tennis Aces and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for fans to compete in, alongside demos for Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Let’s Go, Eevee! and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for attendees.

Naturally, interest in the Nintendo Switch leads to sales. The graph below shows sell-through in Japan, the United States and Europe from April to September:

While sales did slow down in April and May, they bounced back up in June thanks to E3.

Source: Nintendo