Nintendo’s profits fall 19 per cent as a Covid-19 pandemic-fuelled video gaming boom wanes
- Nintendo’s fiscal half sales fell to US$5.5 billion this year, but new titles The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD and Pokémon Snap have sold well
- Video game sales soared while people were stuck at home during the pandemic last year, which helped turn Animal Crossing: New Horizons into a viral hit
Kyoto-based Nintendo Co reported Thursday a 171.8 billion yen (US$1.5 billion) profit for the April-September period, down from 213 billion yen in the same period the previous year.
Fiscal half sales slipped 19 per cent to 624 billion yen (US$5.5 billion). It did not break down quarterly numbers.
Nintendo, which is behind the Super Mario and Pokémon games, was among the global companies that received a boost from the pandemic by providing at-home entertainment.
That’s why Nintendo enjoyed strong sales of its game Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the April-September period the previous year. That momentum was hard to maintain into this year, although the game was so popular that it also boosted sales of the Nintendo Switch machines.
But a shortage of computer chips caused by the pandemic is hurting production of those machines. Nintendo lowered its forecast for Switch hardware sales for the second fiscal half by 1.5 million units to 24 million.
The year-end holidays are critical for Nintendo’s sales. So far, Nintendo has sold nearly 93 million Switch machines worldwide, including the Switch Lite version.
Overall, sales of Nintendo’s downloaded software were mixed, while its mobile sales failed to grow as people continued to enjoy older releases, Nintendo said.
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Nintendo’s Switch console and ‘Animal Crossing’ game smash sales records amid pandemic
Some new games sold well, including The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, which sold 3.6 million units, as well as New Pokémon Snap, which sold 2.2 million units, according to Nintendo.
Nintendo said it’s banking on its collaboration with US software company Niantic to develop a new application for smart devices called Pikmin Bloom, which has been gradually distributed since last month.
“We will focus our efforts on encouraging more consumers to continue to enjoy playing this application along with the others that we have previously released,” Nintendo said in a statement.
Pikmin are tiny creatures featured in games created by Nintendo star developer Shigeru Miyamoto. Niantic is best known for developing augmented reality mobile games such as Pokémon Go .
Nintendo expects a profit of 350 billion yen (US$3 billion) for the full fiscal year through March 2022, down 27 per cent from the previous fiscal year.
