Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. Prev Next View All

During the Wii U years, things didn’t always look so good. This time last year, Nintendo was losing more money than expected. But now, Nintendo has the Switch, and it’s doing just fine, thank you.




According to Reuters, the 16.21 billion yen ($144.95 million) operating profit for the April to June period surpassed an 11.55 billion yen analyst forecast. During the same period last year, Nintendo posted a 5.13 billion yen loss.

The Switch is continuing to do well. The worldwide life-to-date sales are 4.7 million units for Switch hardware and 13.6 million for Switch games. But it’s not the only thing that’s printing money these days.


Here is how Nintendo sees the April to June sales period:

During the first quarter of this period (April through June 2017), for Nintendo Switch, we released Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in April to favorable response, selling 3.54 million units worldwide. ARMS, released in June, is also off to a good start with 1.18 million units sold globally. In addition, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, released in the previous period, has also continued to perform well, selling 1.16 million units worldwide (3.92 million units on a cumulative basis). Altogether the sales volume for Nintendo Switch hardware and software during this period came to 1.97 million units and 8.14 million units respectively. For Nintendo 3DS, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia was released in Japan in April and overseas in May and has been a popular title. Hardware sales were 0.95 million units (1% increase on a year-on-year basis) and software sales were 5.85 million units (31% decrease on a year-on-year basis). As there were few new types of amiibo compared to the same period last year and few new titles offering amiibo functionality, amiibo sales were approximately 1.60 million units for figure-type and approximately 1.30 million units for card-type. In our digital business, sales of the digital versions of packaged software and downloadable content on Nintendo Switch showed steady growth, with total digital sales of 11.0 billion yen (41% increase on a year-on-year basis). For smart devices, many consumers are continuing to enjoy Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, which were released during the previous fiscal year. Our smart device and IP related income was 9.0 billion yen (450% increase on a year-on-year basis).

See? It’s not only the Switch that is printing money, but also Amiibo figures and Nintendo apps.

This fall, Nintendo will release Super Mario Odyssey, Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon as well as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition. No wonder Nintendo isn’t revising its financial forecast. Why would it?