• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.

Discussion Nintendo’s profits during the Switch era surpass the profits of the rest of their presence in the game industry

DJ Pierce

DJ Pierce

Rattata
Pronouns
He/Him


This is so wild to think about. I think one thing this illustrates is how much of a remarkable mess the Wii U was, so starkly jammed into the pit between their two most profitable console generations.
 
nin-gold.jpg
 
I figured the Switch era was their most profitable one, but I didn't think it was to this degree. They're in a very secure spot for the next console.
 
This is absolutely crazy and really demonstrates the monumental success of the Switch. Hopefully they have learned lots of lessons from this era that continue into the future.
 
Makes sense to me. I can imagine these are some of the aspects of it:
  • Nintendo sold hardware at a profit day 1 and continued selling it full price 6 years later. Profit margin is insane.
  • NSO is basically free money (I know it's not really free money). People pay for online for the first time in Nintendo history. The Switch install base is huge and the number of subscriptions is also huge, and Nintendo barely does anything to get it.
  • Insane amount of software available thanks to a full fledged digital store. That's 30% revenue for them from third parties.
  • Big push/strategy for ports/remasters which are low investment with high(er) profit margins. Games like Mario 3D All Stars and DKC Tropical Freeze bring in lots of money while not requiring as much resources as the average project.
  • Switch is of course also potentially becoming their most selling system ever.

Of course I might be wrong on multiple things, and there are likely other more important aspects that contributed to the Switch success.

I hope Nintendo hurries up with the expansion of their dev teams. They've been too slow to grow imo.
 
Wow, no wonder Nintendo didn't care about releasing Switch 2 before now. Going by this chart they've literally never been more successful and popular than they were last year. The momentum's cresting this year.
 
Hajeman said:
¥2696 Billion = $17.5 Billion profit from Switch era (but why I think it's supposedly more than this ? I think every Switch year Nintendo got $4 - 5 Billion profit)
Click to expand...
You're comparing ¥ to $ at current rates.
¥ to $ had a lot of ebbs and flows during the Switch era. Where it was pretty much close to "parity" ($1 = ¥101-115) until 2022 which is when Yen started to really weaken compared to the US Dollar. In ¥ which is the only currency being compared in those tweets, Nintendo has hit a record in their country's currency.

i27ZTb4.png
 
Last edited:
shoichi said:
You're comparing ¥ to $ at current rates.
¥ to $ had a lot of ebbs and flows during the Switch era. Where it was pretty much close to "parity" ($1 = ¥101-115) until 2022 which is when Yen started to really weaken compared to the US Dollar. In ¥ which is the only currency being compared in those tweets, Nintendo has hit a record in their country's currency.

i27ZTb4.png
Click to expand...
Oh yup you correct. I only used current currency rate converter. Now I get it.
 
0
Market wide I see a lot of companies (mainly in electronics & entertainment) that seemingly all made staggering profits because of the COVID period alone. Now Nintendo is having having that + (one of) their most succesful consoles ever.

But even after all that... Wow, that's... Impressive...! I wonder how Nintendo will utilise their new spending budget and how we the players might reap the benefits alongside it, will we notice it in their generations to come?
 
Remember in 2018 when an analyst said "the Switch story is exhausted"? Hilarious times.

Unifying their development pipeline for a handheld and making it function like a TV console was a genius play.
 
invwar said:
I am currently playing Yakuza 0 (set in 88) and was wondering how much everything costs nowadays and realized that Japan has a crazy low inflation rate.
Click to expand...
Seems that way. Picking out a couple numbers from that chart, 1992 and 1993 go from "just under 100" to "right at 100", whereas in USD in that time frame you'd expect a jump like "just under 100" to "just over 200".
 
0
invwar said:
I am currently playing Yakuza 0 (set in 88) and was wondering how much everything costs nowadays and realized that Japan has a crazy low inflation rate.
Click to expand...
Seems that way. Picking out a couple numbers from that chart, 1992 and 1993 go from "just under 100" to "right at 100", whereas in USD in that time frame you'd expect a jump like "just under 100" to "just over 200".
 
Calling people "dumb as fuck" for not buying a Wii U and comparing them to Trump supporters is uncalled for. Please be more careful with your wording. - meatbag, Zellia, BassForever, Tangerine_Cookie, IsisStormDragon
I clicked on this thread because I was impressed by the notion of what was stated in its title. Then I click to read more...

What's this board's obsession with framing the Wii U in such a negative way? The OP's takeaway is summed up with, "illustrates is how much of a remarkable mess the Wii U was." Like why go out of your way to basically being off-topic with the negative slant? You know why the Switch is this successful? Because it has some of the greatest games of all time directly from the Wii U. Like goddamn people let it go. Could Nintendo have better during that time? Sure, but that could be said about any-fucking-body about anything at any given time. Wii U was probably not successful for the same reason Trump was elected president: people are dumb as fuck.
 
Prophet64 said:
I clicked on this thread because I was impressed by the notion of what was stated in its title. Then I click to read more...

What's this board's obsession with framing the Wii U in such a negative way? The OP's takeaway is summed up with, "illustrates is how much of a remarkable mess the Wii U was." Like why go out of your way to basically being off-topic with the negative slant? You know why the Switch is this successful? Because it has some of the greatest games of all time directly from the Wii U. Like goddamn people let it go. Could Nintendo have better during that time? Sure, but that could be said about any-fucking-body about anything at any given time. Wii U was probably not successful for the same reason Trump was elected president: people are dumb as fuck.
Click to expand...
Pointing out the dip between the Wii/DS and Switch era isn’t ’off topic’ here. Nor is the OP calling WiiU a remarkable mess, or me referring to it as a flop between two epic comebacks, given the comparative-by-design nature of the graph in the OP, especially inflammatory. Unlike comparing people to US republicans because they didn’t buy a games console.

WiiU was a failed concept with some great games, remarkably so between two sure-fire massive hits. It happens.
 
Last edited:
Mekanos said:
I figured the Switch era was their most profitable one, but I didn't think it was to this degree. They're in a very secure spot for the next console.
Click to expand...
Honestly, I love creatives at Nintendo and I don’t care about their profit so I’m definitely not going to celebrate them, but there is very good news in all this is that it gives the management of the company the freedom to send to hell all the fools who will not fail in the coming years to ask them to invest in rotten ideas like the NFT, free to play, dumb consolidation, the massive use of artificial intelligence to replace employees, or the publishing of PC games to kill the very purpose of Nintendo’s business model.


Although I have no doubt that at every step, Bloomberg’s wonderful Albert London Prize will be there to explain that Nintendo is in very serious danger if they don’t follow these shitty ideas.
 
DJ Pierce said:


This is so wild to think about. I think one thing this illustrates is how much of a remarkable mess the Wii U was, so starkly jammed into the pit between their two most profitable console generations.
Click to expand...

Are really blaming the Wii U for the mess that was the 3ds?
 
Very impressive,
and whats more important, sales will hardly fell of cliff like they did at end of Wii/DS era.
 
0
GZLT said:
Are really blaming the Wii U for the mess that was the 3ds?
Click to expand...
DS- 154m. 3DS- 76m
Wii- 102m. WiiU- 13.5m

Bit of a difference when the 3DS sold half what the DS did, but only slightly less than the GBA (and way more than the NES and SNES). Whereas the WiiU only sold 13% of what the Wii did, and barely more than half of the GameCube. One of those was a successful platform, just not outrageously so. The other was a critical failure from the outset. That’s no commentary on the games themselves, just on market positioning and reception of the concepts.

Sure, If the 3DS had replicated the DS, it would have helped the financials. But one of the platforms impacted Nintendo far, far more than the other, and it was the WiiU.

Neither platform launched well out of the gate, but 3DS was salvageable (they wildly misjudged the price, leading to the ambassador programme). It still ended up outselling the Vita by 60m units or so. Whereas the WiiU had zero chance against the PS4.
 
Last edited:
PixelKnight said:
DS- 154m. 3DS- 76m
Wii- 102m. WiiU- 13.5m

Bit of a difference when the 3DS sold half what the DS did, but only slightly less than the GBA (and way more than the NES and SNES). Whereas the WiiU only sold 13% of what the Wii did, and barely more than half of the GameCube. One of those was a successful platform, just not outrageously so. The other was a critical failure from the outset. That’s no commentary on the games themselves, just on market positioning and reception of the concepts.

Sure, If the 3DS had replicated the DS, it would have helped the financials. But one of the platforms impacted Nintendo far, far more than the other, and it was the WiiU.

Neither platform launched well out of the gate, but 3DS was salvageable (they wildly misjudged the price, leading to the ambassador programme). It still ended up outselling the Vita by 60m units or so. Whereas the WiiU had zero chance against the PS4.
Click to expand...
It's moreso the fact they lose on profits because of the 3DS and not the Wii U (The price cut make them sell it at a loss)
 
0
I wonder If the rumoured specs are true, Switch 2 will have even more success just because it could have Nintendo games plus the complete (or close) portafolio of third party games day 1.
It could be the one console to have all (if you are not that invested on Sony or Microsoft IPs. I know I'm not)
 
0
Ahmed said:
Makes sense to me. I can imagine these are some of the aspects of it:
  • Nintendo sold hardware at a profit day 1 and continued selling it full price 6 years later. Profit margin is insane.
  • NSO is basically free money (I know it's not really free money). People pay for online for the first time in Nintendo history. The Switch install base is huge and the number of subscriptions is also huge, and Nintendo barely does anything to get it.
  • Insane amount of software available thanks to a full fledged digital store. That's 30% revenue for them from third parties.
  • Big push/strategy for ports/remasters which are low investment with high(er) profit margins. Games like Mario 3D All Stars and DKC Tropical Freeze bring in lots of money while not requiring as much resources as the average project.
  • Switch is of course also potentially becoming their most selling system ever.

Of course I might be wrong on multiple things, and there are likely other more important aspects that contributed to the Switch success.

I hope Nintendo hurries up with the expansion of their dev teams. They've been too slow to grow imo.
Click to expand...
And... I feel like just one game — Mario Kart 8 — is a major part of this story. Little work done on it a loooong time ago and selling monumentally since. Probably around $3 billion in profit just from one port alone.
 
wonaph said:
And... I feel like just one game — Mario Kart 8 — is a major part of this story. Little work done on it a loooong time ago and selling monumentally since. Probably around $3 billion in profit just from one port alone.
Click to expand...
Exactly. It's very smart business wise. MK8 has made them so much money, it's still among the top selling Switch games at full price and they've barely put resources in it compared to new games. Add on top of it the booster course DLC, which is also content that was ported/remastered. I wish we could get a peek into what Nintendo spends and earns on it, the profit margins are probably insane.
 
0
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom