Nintendo recorded lower sales in the past quarter. However, the Japanese game company scored another big hit last year with the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which was seen as the game to get through the lockdown period.
With a new blockbuster of the same order not forthcoming, sales of the Nintendo Switch game console are also falling.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons hit the market in March last year, just as more and more countries were calling on their residents to stay at home to prevent the spread of corona. Instead, the game takes players to a desert island where they have to build an idyllic society together with animals. That flight from reality went well, as the exploding sales figures of the game and the Switch consoles showed.
In contrast to the popularity of the simulation game, new games that appeared in April, May and June are faded. For example, the games Mario Golf Super Rush and New Pokémon Snap that appeared in the past quarter did not have such a flashy start in terms of sales. In addition, the successor to the popular game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is much expected, will not be released until the next calendar year.
In the first quarter of Nintendo’s broken fiscal year 2021/2022, the Japanese company sold just under 5.7 million consoles, almost 22 percent less than a year earlier. On the other hand, the cheaper Switch Lite was sold more than half as much as a year earlier. As a result, turnover fell almost 10 percent to 322.6 billion yen.