Late last month, while he was confirming that the company had no current plans to develop a new kind of Switch or cut the console’s price, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was adamant the company could sell 20 million Switches by the end of this financial year (which ends March 31). He’s since cut his estimate down to 17 million, citing Nintendo’s “insufficient” efforts to properly convey the appeal of its latest console.
The news comes from a recent finance-oriented Q&A briefing from the company. Furukawa commented on the reason he decided to reduce the estimate. “As we look back so far (for this fiscal year), we now evaluate that our efforts to fully convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch hardware and software to the number of new consumers we originally hoped to reach were insufficient,” he said. Nintendo expected that putting out a few games over the holiday season (like Super Mario Party, Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) would help bolster console sales, but that ended up not being enough.
“We will talk about the next fiscal year in more detail at a later time, but basically we want to further increase both our hardware and software unit sales more than this fiscal year,” Furukawa said.
The company also recently announced plans to bolster its online service and is currently offering a $35 eShop voucher to anyone who buys a Switch. Additionally, there’s also news Microsoft is planning implement Xbox Live on the console.
[Source: Nintendo via Nintendo Life]
