Sales of the popular Nintendo Switch games console dipped dramatically in the most recent quarter, with chip shortages apparently taking their toll.
Nintendo sold 3.43 million Switch consoles across April, May, and June. That’s a whopping 23 percent drop from the 4.45 million units shifted during the same period of 2021.
The reason for the drop in Nintendo Switch sales, according to the company’s earnings report, is those dastardly component shortages that have been blighting the wider tech industry of late. “Hardware production was impacted by factors such as the global shortage of semiconductor components, resulting in a decrease of hardware shipments,” it explained.
In more bad news for the Japanese company, software sales dropped 8.6 percent year on year from 45.3 million to 41.4 million. It’s been a relatively low key quarter for major first party releases, with only Nintendo Switch Sports really standing out as a clear big hitter on 4.84 million units sold.
Both Mario Strikers: Battle League and Kirby and the Forgotten Land were pretty marginal titles that sold less than half that amount.
Operating profits of 101.6 billion yen (about £625 million) fell short of expectations.
On the positive side, Nintendo predicts that the current chip shortage issues will abate over the coming months. “We expect procurement to gradually improve from late summer towards autumn, giving us a clearer outlook regarding production for the remaining calendar year”, it said.
Sony recently reported that it too was struggling with production of its PS5, as well as a decline in software sales.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
