Nintendo had one of the loftiest goals I had seen for the sales numbers for the Switch. They originally set the marker at 20 million hardware sales for the fiscal year, which is a whole lot of sales. Just last month though, Nintendo had dropped that number to a more realistic estimate of 17 million. Even though that is a drop of three million, that is still an outstanding number for the year.
As noted by Nintendo Life, Nintendo President, Shuntaro Furukawa responded to questions revolving around the set back in sales expectations during Nintendo’s recent financial briefing and responded by saying there were “insufficient” convey the appeal of the Switch to enough people. Furukawa stated:
“As we look back so far (for this fiscal year), we now evaluate that our efforts to fully convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch hardware and software to the number of new consumers we originally hoped to reach were insufficient. And from the viewpoint of our full-year unit sales forecast for this fiscal year, while we expected that releasing titles during the holiday season would help to increase sales, the year-on-year sales increase during the first half of the fiscal year (April to September) turned out not big enough, which also affected the revision of the unit forecast as we looked back now.”
In my opinion, the 20 million mark was not as much an estimate, but more of a best-case scenario situation and I do not understand why the number was set so high. Furukawa did state how the company believed that the title’s released during the holidays, such as Super Smash Bros Ultimate, would help boost sales. However, we did have a long spell during the beginning of the year that didn’t feature games releasing with the magnitude and broad appeal that Smash brings which ultimately probably hurt the company’s expectations in the long run. If there was never a gap in game releases for a couple months such as the first year of the console’s lifespan, maybe they would have achieved that remarkable 20 million estimate.
It is a bit weird though to see Nintendo speaking on how something didn’t live up to their expectations. Granted, it was a huge one. Ever since the launch of the Switch, Nintendo has been met with nothing but positive sales numbers. Not even two years after release, the Switch has now eclipsed 32 million units sold, and that number will not stop climbing. Even though Nintendo’s President Shuntaro Furukawa’s comments were on the negative side, there has been nothing Nintendo should feel down on about the Switch. It is killing and will continue to kill.
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The post Lofty 20 Million Switch Target Failed Due to “Insufficient” Efforts To Show Its Appeal Says Nintendo President by Grant Huff appeared first on DualShockers.