Zhang Shule is a columnist for People's Daily Online and People's Post and Telegraph

Switch was cut in half,

Can China turn around?

Among the rapidly changing electronic products, the Nintendo Switch (hereinafter referred to as Switch) released in 2017 can be described as a maverick.

But this "old book" that has been gnawed for almost eight years is also a little "unbearable" in the latest financial report.

Recently, Japan game software developer Nintendo (Nintendo) announced its report for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 (April-June 2024).

The data shows that Switch sales are close to halving, down 46% year-on-year, with a total of 2.1 million units sold, while software sales are also down 41.3% year-on-year, with a total of 30.64 million copies sold.

While the relative weakness of the yen continues to boost the Japan gaming giant's earnings, the company keeps its gloomy annual net profit forecast unchanged.

Nintendo also said: "In the first quarter of the last fiscal year, both hardware and software sales reached record highs. ”

A year ago, the huge success of the Super Mario movie and the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (the best-selling game in the history of the Zelda franchise for nearly four decades) breathed life into the business.

However, "there are no such special factors in the first quarter of this fiscal year, and it has been eight years since the Nintendo Switch was launched, and both hardware and software sales have dropped significantly year-on-year."

A few days earlier, on the 2nd, Nintendo announced that they predicted that Switch hardware sales for the whole year would reach 13.5 million units.

This forecast is not much different from the market estimate of 13.29 million units.

But it seems that looking at the 2.1 million in the quarterly report, multiplied by 4, it seems that it can only reach the waist.

In the context of the overall cold console market, where did Nintendo have the courage to release such bold words?

What happened to the Switch in China, which once sold millions of units in China, has become a key step for Nintendo.

In the latest approval information for imported online games in 2024 released in August this year, two games for Switch, "Mario Golf: Super Rush" and "Paper Mario: Origami King" are listed.

Media combing found that among the imported online game versions that have passed the review from January to August 2024, the cumulative number of game versions for Switch has reached 11, including "Super Mario 3D World and Fury World" and "Pokémon Let's Go!" Pikachu" and other popular IPs.

Does BNM Switch have a chance to deeply penetrate the Chinese market?

How many Chinese gamers can the Switch capture?

Will the Chinese market become a good medicine for Nintendo to find its youth?

A data that needs to be noted is that the "Report on China's Game Industry from January to June 2024" shows that the actual sales revenue of the domestic game market from January to June this year was 147.267 billion yuan, while the actual sales revenue of the console game market in the same period was only 797 million yuan, accounting for only 0.5%.

In this regard, Li Yutong, a reporter from the Daily Economic News, had an exchange with Shule, and the monkey thought:

Nintendo's poor financial performance is mainly due to the fact that there are no exclusive hit games in the near future, and its game console is "old" and not competitive enough.

For Nintendo, as long as it maintains a hit game for half a year and does not use a super hit like Mori, it can maintain its sense of existence, and its annual report data will not be bad, and it can also support its "old" and never superior performance Switch and its sequels to continue to have the market.

On the other hand, the Bank of China Switch faces three problems:

One is that although there have been approved versions of games over the years, they pale in comparison to the massive number of Switches in other regions, which makes domestic console players automatically avoid pitfalls.

The second is that Chinese console gamers account for a very low proportion of total players, and in the face of more convenient mobile games, the game console Yusan can't actually play.

Third, domestic console players generally focus on hardcore game masterpieces, and the game inventory of the National Bank of China Switch is obviously not good.

Moreover, Switch games, which focus on casual entertainment and family fun, are also less competitive than Xbox and PlayStation, which are more focused on performance, picture quality, and shock.

Without the massive influx of console games, it will always be a niche in the Chinese market.

At the same time, in the global market, the whirlwind of mobile games brought by Chinese game manufacturers is still cutting through the game stock market, which will also bring about a decline in the share of the game console market.

In addition, the three major game console manufacturers have not had a subversive next-generation console replacement in recent years, and users' lack of desire to update consoles will also bring sales troubles.

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