As Sony and Microsoft slug it out in the top end console market, Nintendo is taking the middle ground, with products that appeal to families and children a move that has seen the Japanese business ride out the decline in gaming revenues with a 21% lift in sales mobile sales were up 133%.
For the six months ended September 30, 2023, the platform holder reported a 21.2% year-on-year increase in net sales to US$5.3 billion and a 27% increase in operating profit to US$1.9 billion.
The strong first half, was boosted by the launch of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and The Super Mario Bros Movie.
As a result of a record first half the gaming Company that has had a lot of success with their Nintendo Switch has raised its profit forecast from US$2.3 billion to $2.8 billion for the year ending March 30, 2024.
The big performer during the last six months were The Legend of Zelda and Tears of the Kingdom which sold over 19.5 million copies.
This already places these games among the top ten best-selling Switch games since the console first launched almost seven years ago.
On the movie front, Nintendo claimed that The Super Mario Bros Movie in April “positively impacted sales of Mario-related titles.”
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, sold 3.22 million units, bringing its lifetime sales past 57 million and cementing it as the biggest selling title on the Switch.
The Mario movie was also the biggest driver in Nintendo’s mobile and IP-related business, which saw sales rise 133.3% year-on-year to US$365.8 billion.
Pikmin 4, released in July, sold 2.61 million. Nintendo reported that 16 Switch games sold more than one million units during the first half of its fiscal year, including third-party titles.
Overall hardware sales were up 2.4% with the business selling 6.84 million units.
The OLED model continues to be the biggest seller at 4.69 million units, followed by the standard model at 1.25 million and the Lite at 9 million.
There was also a 1.8% uptick in software sales to 97.1 million units.
Overall sales were $5.3 billion, with sales outside of Japan accounting for 78.3% of this total by delivering US$4.1 billion in revenue.
Going forward the business is forecasting net sales of $10.6 billion, and an operating profit of US $3.3 billion, and ordinary profit of 4 billion.
