Nintendo (7974.T), a Kyoto-based video game business that continues to release blockbusters despite market speculation about when to release a replacement device, pleaded for the continued fitness of its elderly Switch platform on Wednesday.
Within two weeks of its Oct. 20 release, the Japanese company reported selling 4.3 million copies of “Super Mario Bros. Wonder,” the first completely new installment in the almost 40-year-old side-scrolling franchise in a decade.
Nintendo said this is the best performance of any “Super Mario” game, leveraging the enthusiasm sparked by a blockbuster animated film starring the mustachioed plumber and the Switch’s install base of over 130 million devices.
During a strategy briefing, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa stated “The Switch will enter its eighth year in March 2024, but we will continue to develop new titles without being bound by previous platform lifecycles.”
The remarks are made one day after Nintendo revealed that, in the first half of the fiscal year that began in April, it sold 6.84 million Switch consoles, a slight rise over the same period last year.
Except for 2020, Nintendo said that first-party Switch game sales were at their highest point in 2019. Blockbuster titles like “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” helped drive this trend.
Additionally, Nintendo said on Wednesday that Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind “Super Mario,” is working on a live-action “Zelda” game.
“Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD” and “Mario vs. Donkey Kong” are two of the games that will be out next year.
According to a client note from Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal, the release window for a successor to Nintendo’s hybrid home/portable Switch gadget may be between March and October, depending on the company’s hardware and software sales.
“The stronger the sales, the later the launch of Switch 2,” he stated.