The Nintendo Labo recently launched worldwide amidst huge expectations for the Nintendo’s latest addition to the Nintendo Switch. However, barely a week has passed and the hype surrounding the cardboard kits, which was deafening back when it was originally announced earlier in January this year, has already dissipated. That wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the rest of the world but it turns out the Nintendo Labo didn’t exactly do that well in its home country Japan either.
As reported by Dualshockers via statistics revealed by Media Create, the Nintendo Labo kits only managed to sell 30 percent of its initial shipment. Only 100,000 Nintendo Labo kits were sold in Japan since its debut, including the Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 01: Variety Kit and the Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 02: Robot Kit at 90,410 and 28,629 units respectively, with it selling around 30% of its stock.
Those numbers are quite underwhelming since Nintendo probably expected to sell more of its latest product. It’s also possible that the company shipped a higher number of Nintendo Labo kits to meet a level of demand which presumably wasn’t there, to begin with.
In the UK, the latest game charts revealed that God of War has managed to hold onto its overwhelming debut from the previous week while both of the Nintendo Labo kits debuted at underwhelming positions. The sales for God of War dipped a mere 35 percent in its second week, which means that the highly-anticipated PS4 exclusive is maintaining the initial furor it generated on release. The Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 01: Variety Kit debuted at third place on the chart whereas the Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 02: Robot Kit had to settle for twentieth place.
With Nintendo Labo off to a pretty bad start, it remains to be seen what Nintendo’s strategy will be to bolster the sales of its latest product. If the sales keep declining, the company will have to rethink its future plans for the Nintendo Switch. However, the hybrid console has already proven to be a literal game-changer, having sold more than 17 million units to date and allowing the company to achieve its best profits in a whopping eight years.
