Nintendo Switch 2 Sales Drop Nearly 40% After a Price Hike
Nintendo shipped 6.49 million Switch 2 units between April and September, down from 10.36 million last year.
Summary
Nintendo experienced a 37.4 percent year-over-year decline in Switch 2 hardware sales during the first two quarters of its fiscal year following a price hike
Despite the drop in console adoption, operating profits surged 49.1 percent to $1.3 billion due to heavy software and multimedia momentum
The brand maintained its projection of 16.5 million hardware units for the current fiscal year, comfortably offsetting the launch-window cool-off
The post-launch honeymoon phase is officially cooling down for Nintendo. Over the first two quarters of its fiscal year, ending on September 30, sales of the Switch 2 fell by 37.4 percent compared with the exact same period last year. During this six-month stretch, the Japanese gaming giant moved 6.49 million units of the next-generation console. Breaking down that shifting momentum, Nintendo shipped 3.82 million units in the first quarter before slowing to 2.67 million units in the second quarter. The sharp hardware decline stands in contrast to the 10.36 million consoles sold during the same six-month window in the previous fiscal year, a surge driven by initial demand after the hardware originally launched on June 5, 2025.
A major catalyst for this hardware dip arrived in early May, when Nintendo raised the price of the Switch 2 by $50 USD, bringing the retail cost up to $500 USD in the US. The brand attributed the premium to escalating memory costs alongside complex US tariffs. Nintendo noted that tariffs related to refunds were primarily borne directly by the company, rather than being passed on to consumers through product prices. The resulting drop in hardware unit sales took a toll on revenue streams, with Nintendo reporting a 12.1 percent decrease in overall net sales for the six months ended September 30, 2026. This financial downturn was primarily driven by reduced hardware output, which brought down the company’s dedicated video game platform segment by 15.3 percent to $5.7 billion USD.
Despite the drop in console adoption, the financial architecture behind the brand proved resilient. In contrast to the hardware decline, Nintendo saw its operating profit surge by 49.1 percent, climbing to ¥216.5 billion JPY, or approximately $1.3 billion USD. Overall net profit also rose 11 percent from a year earlier. This bottom-line expansion was supported by a strategic first-quarter US tariff refund and heavy cultural crossover success. Blockbuster software sales from titles like Splatoon Raiders paired with the mainstream popularity of the latest Super Mario movie, providing a diversified revenue safety net. Through these combined media avenues, total lifetime software sales for the Switch 2 reached 73.21 million units by September 30.
Looking ahead, Nintendo maintained its baseline forecast, projecting it will move 16.5 million Switch 2 units for the current fiscal year. While that 16.5 million unit target is almost 17 percent lower than the 19.86 million consoles the company sold last year, holding steady on this projection reflects its overall hardware strategy. Nintendo’s decision to maintain its initial hardware forecast despite the sales drop suggests the executive team had already factored fading launch-window hype and the planned price hike into its fiscal year projections. Because strong performance in its software and multimedia divisions allowed the company to offset the decline in console adoption, the Switch 2 reached a total of 26.35 million lifetime hardware units sold as of the close of the second quarter.
