OSAKA, Japan— Nintendo Co. is looking to peripherals to lift the sales pace of its Switch videogame console in the product’s second year on the market rather than changing its basic hardware, say people familiar with the company’s plans.

Saturday will mark a year since the Switch went on sale. Cumulative sales are set to reach 17 million by March 31, beating initial expectations, and Nintendo Chief Executive Tatsumi Kimishima has said he wants to sell more than 20 million units in the new fiscal year that begins April 1.

The company has high hopes for its Nintendo Labo cardboard toy kit, which goes on sale in April and is aimed at attracting parents looking for an educational toy for their children. The kits contain cardboard pieces that can be assembled into pianos, cars, robots or other toys that work with the Switch hardware and use it as a brain.

The Labo is one of the steps planned by Nintendo to lure a wider range of customers. Company data shown to investors suggest current Switch owners are mostly game fans drawn by Nintendo titles such as “Super Mario Odyssey” and “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.”

Some parents interviewed at an electronics store in Osaka said they hesitated to give their children videogames—but would take a closer look at the Labo as it’s more like a crafts project.

Game enthusiasts and industry personnel play the Switch in the Nintendo exhibit during the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 in Los Angeles last June. Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images

The Labo kit is designed to teach how software and physical objects interact with each other. It allows users to reprogram how their input—such as the shake of a controller—affects the output, creating odd situations like using a cardboard fishing rod to steer a car.


Ayumu Sugita, who teaches physics at Osaka City University, attended a Nintendo event with his 10-year-old daughter, who likes working with crafts and drawing. The Labo kit “is interesting from the physics point of view. For example, the car doesn’t have wheels but translates the Switch controller’s vibration into a force to move forward and backward,” he said.

The people familiar said expanded Switch features in the coming year could also include additional network-related features and peripherals to be attached to its USB Type-C port.

People line up to get their hands on the Switch at an electronics store in Tokyo last year. Feverish demand for the console has led to short supply. Photo: Toru Hanai/Reuters

But they said changes to the Switch itself—like a smaller version of the machine—were unlikely this year as Nintendo focuses on better manufacturing and shipping of the current model.

In its first year, the Switch was frequently in short supply, and procuring key components remains a challenge.


At an investor briefing in February, Mr. Kimishima, the Nintendo CEO, said he wanted to make the Switch’s product cycle longer than the five-to-six-year span that’s become customary in the videogame console industry. One person familiar with development plans said waiting longer to introduce variations in the hardware would serve that purpose.

Write to Takashi Mochizuki at takashi.mochizuki@wsj.com