By Joséphine Li
Nintendo Switch fever isn’t going away.
The company released a new round of knockout earnings and raised its forecast last week, showing that a surge in demand caused by the pandemic isn’t wearing off.
The Kyoto-based company said that operating profit for the first half of the fiscal year, which ended in September, soared 209 percent to $2.8 billion, compared to the same period the year before. Sales climbed 73 percent to $7.4 billion.
The success shows that strong sell-through momentum continues even after the summer sales season — months into the pandemic, people are still turning to the Switch game console in droves. From April to September, Nintendo sold about 12.5 million of the devices, an 81 percent increase over the previous year.
On November 5, the company hiked sales projections for the Switch, predicting a jump in growth through the fiscal year ending in March. It now expects to sell 24 million units, up from an earlier estimate of 19 million. The company’s profits are expected to grow by as much as 50 percent.
One notable success was the continued popularity of “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” The best-selling game, which is set on a relaxing virtual island utopia and allows users to fish, collect fossils, catch bugs, decorate houses and play with friends on the beach, runs on the Switch and has been in high demand since people worldwide started staying home because of the global pandemic.
Over the past six months, Nintendo said it sold 14.3 million copies of the game, bringing total sales to about 26 million units. For comparison, Nintendo’s evergreen best-selling Switch game of all time, “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” has racked up almost 29 million sales. Other titles also helped boost the company’s software sales through September.
According to the company, more than 5.2 million copies of “Super Mario 3D All-Stars,” a special game released in September to celebrate the titular Mario’s 35th birthday, have been sold so far. The recently launched role-playing Nintendo 64 classic based game “Paper Mario: The Origami King,” has sold more than 2.8 million copies.
Demand for Switch games made by other video game developers also continued to grow steadily, the company said. This financial year has been so strong, there are now 20 different Switch titles that have sold at least a million copies, it added.
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