According to Nintendo’s latest financial results, the company believes the Nintendo Switch will overtake the DS this year to become their best-selling platform ever.
In the report Nintendo reveals that the Switch is currently sitting at a whopping 141.32m units sold, and forecasts the machine to sell another 13.5m during the coming Financial year which will end in March 2025. If they meet that target, the Switch will have sold 154.82m, enough to beat the legendary Nintendo DS which sits at 154.02m.
That won’t be enough to take the crown as the best-selling platform though, which is still held by the iconic PlayStation 2 at 160m units sold.
The big question, of course, is whether Nintendo can achieve the goal. In the last 12 months the Switch has sold 17.97m units, down around 12.6 percent from the previous year. If it drops by the same number again, Nintendo will easily hit the target. However, the Switch was bolstered by some huge games over the last 12 months such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (having now broken 20m copies sold) and Super Mario Bros. Wonder (13.44m sold.)
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The current lineup is less impressive. Of course, it’s hard to predict the loyal Nintendo fanbase though, who typically buy even the smallest Nintendo titles in large numbers. Mario vs Donkey Kong and Princess Peach: Showtime, for example, were both revealed to have sold over 1m copies each.
I think the most likely strategy is aggressive price-cuts, especially now that we know Nintendo plans on officially revealing the Switch’s successor before March of 2025.