Year-one for Nintendo’s Switch 2 began brightly, with early, record-breaking sales success. But a new report has suggested demand for Nintendo’s newest console is flagging, especially in the US.
Bloomberg reports that Nintendo is cutting back production of Switch 2, lowering manufacturing from 6 million units to 4m – a drop of a third – and that the reduced output will continue in April. That’s according to “people familiar with the matter”.
One of the reasons for the dip is thought to be games. The big Christmas earner for Switch 2 was supposed to be Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, but it struggled to sell 1m copies in December, said Bloomberg, way below Nintendo’s expectations. “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is enjoyable enough,” we wrote in our Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review, “and has glimpses of vintage Metroid shining through, but this game could and should have been so much more.”
Nintendo share-price sagged in response, but it was reinflated recently by the better-than-expected performance of Pokémon Pokopia – “one of the best spin-offs the franchise has ever seen”, we wrote in our Pokémon Pokopia review. Pokémon Pokopia raced to more than 2m sales after only four days on sale.
Attention will now turn to games like From Software’s as yet undated Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, and slew of third-party releases, to propel Nintendo’s newest console into year two.
Of course, games aren’t the only challenge Nintendo’s hardware faces. Economic factors such as AI-driven demand for computer components, as well as unpredictable tariffs and war in the Middle East, have caused problems for supply and manufacture. There’s also a wider sense that the role of the console as an entry-level gateway into gaming is shifting, and that phones and tablets occupy that space instead.
As a counterpoint to this doom and gloom, Switch 2 is performing very well in Japan, but its worldwide performance means Nintendo hasn’t raised the full-year sales expectation of Switch 2 beyond 19m, which is a tactic Bloomberg noted it usually likes to use.
