Nintendo hoping to sell 20m Switch units during fiscal year 2018

While Nintendo’s official forecast is to sell 14m Switch units by the end of this fiscal year, it looks like Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima has more ambition for next year’s.

In an interview with Kyoto Shimbun (as reported by Wcctech), Kimishima revealed that Nintendo was hoping to sell 20m Switch units during fiscal year 2018. Fiscal years in Japan start in April.

In its translation of the interview, Wcctech also reported that Kimishima said that “the momentum has exceeded expectations and Nintendo intends to accelerate it even further.” He also said the firm would increase production of the Switch and asked for consumers to be understanding as the console was sometimes difficult to get hold of throughout last year. 

Nintendo announced mid-December that the Switch had sold 10m units in nine months, so it’s likely that sales by the end of FY 2017 will actually be exceeding the 14m forecast. Nintendo’s initial plan was to sell 10m in the console’s first year. If everything goes according to plan, the Switch will have sold a total of 34m units in two years, though it’s likely to be higher than that.

Nintendo also recently reported that the Switch had caused a 175 per cent sales growth for the six months ending on September 30th.

Of course, continued growth on the Switch front will only be possible if Nintendo continues to provide a successful line-up of games, with last year’s successes including Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Mario Odyssey, which recently hit 1m copy sold in Japan. 

Meanwhile, Nintendo has recently informed developers that 64GB game cards, allowing developers double the current maximum of 32GB to work with, will not be available for the Switch until 2019.