(Tokyo) The video game giant Nintendo plans to sell 15 million units from its new Switch 2 console in the year 2025-2026, started in April, after seeing its sales and its profit collapsed in 2024-2025 against the background of the bored players of the original Switch.
Posted at 5:49 a.m.
Julien Girault Agency France-Presse
He is about to market the Switch 2 from June 5, greedy by the players despite a price deemed too high. This new model is supposed to stop the crumbling of the group’s sales, weighed down by the aging of its Switch star console.
However, this anticipation of massive sales of the Switch 2 turns out to be very below the median expectations of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 16.8 million units.
The president of the group, Shuntaro Furukawa, said in April that 2.2 million pre -order requests had been recorded for Japan alone, a figure then qualified as “extremely high”, very greater than the expectations of the group as well as the number of Switch 2 which can be delivered on the release date.
PHOTO KIM KYUNG-HOON, ARCHIVES REUTERS
La Nintendo Switch 2
The stake is massive: although Nintendo is diversifying in themed parks and successful films, around 90 % of its income comes from the activity linked to its star console Switch.
Released in March 2017 and sold since more than 146 million copies (third best -selling console of all time, behind the PlayStation 2 of Sony and the Nintendo DS), this hybrid machine playable both on the move and connected to a television has become a huge success.
But after now blowing her eight candles, she has largely exceeded the previous Nintendo consoles in longevity: sales were short of breath over the years, weariness settling in the audience while waiting for its new version.
A sign of these difficulties: the sales of the original switch plunged 22 % in the financial year 2024-2025 completed at the end of March.
-Over the year, Nintendo saw its net profit collapse from 43.2 % to 278.8 billion yen (1.71 billion euros), while its turnover founded 30 % to 1165 billion yen (7.16 billion euros).
Customs barriers
Nintendo unveiled the details of the Switch 2 in early April: like the previous one, it is a hybrid console, but with a larger screen, removable controllers and an integrated microphone. The Switch 2 will have eight times more memory than its first version (256 GB).
“We believe that demand will go far beyond the available supply,” said ATUL GOYAL, analyst at Jefferies.
And the announcement of the postponement of the next game of the series Grand Theft Auto (GTA) from Sony in May 2026 is also good news for Nintendo, making competition “less fierce” for the outings of its own games, according to Mr. Goyal.
Among the games available for the launch of the Switch 2, we will find Mario Kart Worldaspect of one of the group’s most popular series, developed exclusively for the new console.
The price of the Switch 2 unveiled by Nintendo, however, aroused strong offended reactions: 469.99 euros in Europe (449.99 dollars in the United States), while its predecessor had been launched at 329.99 euros.
In addition, the unknown of the customs war launched by Donald Trump combined the horizon.
The company has its consoles manufactured in China, but also in Vietnam and Cambodia, three countries struck since April by massive customs taxes from the United States. Nintendo had delayed pre-orders in the United States for several weeks, the time to assess the consequences of the trade war.
Analysts expect clarifications on how the company intends to moderate the price increases related to customs duties – at the risk if not to trip the Nintendo action, whose course has jumped approximately 90 % since August.
The Japanese group said Thursday that American customs duties could upset its forecasts, without offering more details.
Last year, the United States represented some 36 % of Nintendo’s total sales, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. And customs duties could force Nintendo to increase the announced price of its console in the country by up to 28 %.
At the risk of detering many buyers: “most of the general public will not pay $ 600 for a Switch 2”, not to mention the prices of the games, estimates Michael Pachter, analyst of Wedbush Securities, quoted by Bloomberg.
