Nintendo Switch 2018 sales have just barely missed their predicted target for the year. Earlier in the year, market analysts believed that the Nintendo Switch would sell a solid 20 million units in the 2018 fiscal year. Sometime thereafter, these figures were revised down to 17 million units. Unfortunately, it seems like Nintendo Switch 2018 sales just barely missed the mark, even with the lowered projections.
As GamesIndustry.biz reports, Nintendo has just released its final financial report for Fiscal Year 2018. While 2018 has been over for nearly five months now, fiscal years often turn over at the end of March rather than at the end of December. The information for the previous year indicates that Nintendo has had a strong performance in many respects, although sales of its popular hybrid handheld console didn’t quite meet the expectations that many had for the device.
Nintendo Switch 2018 sales totaled up to 16.95 million units — just 50,000 units shy of analysts predictions. While this might be disappointing to some (especially holders of Nintendo stock), this slightly sluggish performance nonetheless represented a 12.7% increase in sales year-on-year.
“The market wanted a little more,” said Matsui Securities analyst Tomoichiro Kubota as reported by Bloomberg. “Releasing new hardware sooner would have definitely helped this year’s numbers, but it seems we’ll have to wait a little bit longer for that.”
One of the possible reasons for sluggish sales are rumors that Nintendo is working on an updated version of the Nintendo Switch. As one might expect, this could lead people to hold off on making a purchase for fear of getting stuck with older hardware. Those rumors were recently quashed by the Japanese-based hardware and software developer. While they didn’t definitively rule out the creation of a new Nintendo Switch, they did state that it was unlikely that we would be seeing its debut at E3 2019.
Although Nintendo Switch 2018 sales may have been a bit disappointing, the console’s performance is nonetheless quite healthy. A total of 34.74 million Nintendo Switches have been sold worldwide and 2019 is sure to see that number keep going up.
