Nintendo wants to sell another 20 million Nintendo Switch consoles around the world in the next year, and while admitting that the ambitious sales target will not be reached “easily,” Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima believes that their unannounced games mean that they are “primed” to achieve it.
“As we discussed earlier, seeing how far we can expand the market in the second year of sales is incredibly important for a video game system, whether it is a handheld game system or a home console system,” Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima explained, in response to a question at the company’s financial results briefing.
“For the launch of Nintendo Switch, we conducted a variety of activities aimed at Nintendo fans and avid game players who we thought could be interested in Nintendo Switch, and I would say yielded good results. In this second year, the initiatives we are planning come from our recognition that we also have to challenge ourselves to delivering Nintendo Switch into the hands of consumers who have never played a Nintendo platform before, and to those [that] have played before, but not recently.
“We set a sales target for the Nintendo Switch hardware of 20 million units during this fiscal year because it is essential that we exceed the 15.05 million units sold last fiscal year, and in order to sell more units than we did last fiscal year, the software lineup we have planned is meant to attract people including those who have not been playing video games recently. We have reached a consensus across the entire organisation, including our overseas subsidiaries, to work towards reaching this level. That number of 20 million units is not one we will reach easily, but I believe we are primed to do it.
“As for the Nintendo Switch life cycle, we need to steadily provide new experiences that will keep consumers always wanting to play Nintendo Switch in order to maintain sales for a long time. I cannot go into detail here today, but out company has a lot of experience with selling gaming systems, and we will actively incorporate everything we have learned, including our failures, into our planning.
“Changing environmental factors, including the activities of other companies, can impact the Nintendo Switch life cycle. So the benchmark is not whether Nintendo Switch sales can surpass total Wii sales, but rather how we adapt and respond to changes in the market and strive to continue selling Nintendo Switch as long as possible.”
