Nintendo’s sales may be down, but profits are up

Nintendo’s revenue report for 2023 has recently been released and reveals that profits within the company have risen to $2.7 billion. Despite a drop in both hardware and software sales compared to previous years, Nintendo enjoyed an increase in net profit and end-of-year sales, thanks mostly to an active holiday period shopping rush.

This culminated in Nintendo’s revenue for the full year being slightly higher than what was previously predicted by the company, and as a result, the numbers are looking good and break down as follows.

As of December 31, 2023, the total revenue of the company stands at $9.4 billion (¥1.4 trillion), which is an increase of just over 7.5% from the previous year. Net profit increased by just under 18% and now stands at $2.7 billion (¥408 billion). Overall sales were also up by 1.8% to $10.7 billion (¥1.6 trillion).

It wasn’t all good news for Nintendo though. Hardware sales for the number of Nintendo Switch’s consoles sold were down by almost 8% to 13.7 million units total. However, as the console is now almost 7 years old, a decrease in sales year-over-year is to be expected. With that said, sales of both the OLED and Switch Lite models actually increased slightly this past year compared with the figures from 2022.

Software sales were also down by a little over 4.5% to 164 million total units sold, even though sales on Nintendo’s own store actually increased by 4.7%. Regardless of this overall decline in software sales, there were still over 20 new titles released in 2023 that sold over a million copies.

Leading the pack with sales of over 20 million units sold worldwide was The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Fellow global gaming icon Super Mario also boasted another successful year with Super Mario Wonder selling just under 12 million copies. Thanks in part to the release of the Super Mario Bros Movie, Super Mario Bros Wonder became the fastest-ever selling game in the franchise.

The impact of the Super Mario Bros Movie might also have had a pragmatic influence on the increased sales of Mario-related titles. For example, since the movie was released, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold around 6.8 million more copies, bringing the totality of its sales to just 60.5 million units.

Another aspect of Nintendo’s jurisdiction that also enjoyed an increase was in the department of its digital sales, including DLCs and Nintendo Switch Online. Overall, this digital domain increased by just over 11.5% from last year to $2.3 billion (¥346 billion) and continues to play a bigger part in all gaming platforms, not just Nintendo.

Another record boasted by Nintendo this past year was the reveal of its largest number of annual players ever. There are now roughly 122 million active users using Nintendo devices, which is almost 10 million more compared to 2022. The analytics also show that around 70% of sales came from outside of Japan.

With a successful 2023 now in the books, Nintendo will be hoping for another year of strong sales and new records. And with rumors of the Nintendo Switch 2 possibly being revealed in 2024, it promises to be another compelling year in the world of gaming. Be sure to stay tuned here for all the latest gaming news as soon as it drops.