The Nintendo Switch 2 burst out of the gate becoming the fastest-selling console ever, but sales slowed in many regions over Christmas. The Games Business data shows that momentum over the all-important Christmas season slowed. One country of some concern is France, which is one of the biggest Nintendo markets in Europe. Nintendo Switch 2 sales were over 30% lower than what the original Switch achieved in its first year. The Game Business says it spoke to a senior Nintendo employee who informed them that a “complicated economic landscape” mixed with higher price points and “the absence of a major Western game” during Christmas didn’t help.
“Nevertheless, all major European markets saw a slowdown in Switch 2 sales momentum over the Christmas sales window.”
My wife mentioned just yesterday that most of her pediatric patients that she saw last week mentioned having gotten a Switch 2 for Christmas. As such, I assumed that sales were still strong throughout the holidays.
The linked article is frankly full of malarky. It’s extrapolating November US sales numbers over December when no one actually knows the US December numbers. It also admits that Switch 2 overall performed better than Switch 1 in UK during it’s first year, despite being on the market for 14 less weeks! It even admits that Nintendo’s Switch 1 + 2 sales of the Christmas season were up for Nintendo, and it’s only if you compare Switch 2’s first holiday season with Switch 1’s first holiday season where the numbers are only SLIGHTLY worse. I don’t think these are bad numbers at all, and the article is making it sound way worse by cherry picking very specific weeks to spell out doom and gloom.
They even explicitly say France’s low numbers were an outlier, but then for some reason stated there was “slowdown” everywhere without specifying what the even mean by slowdown. With how cherry picked the rest of the article is I do NOT trust them to define “slowdown” in a way that makes sense. Many European countries don’t even share this data, and I’m not convinced they even have all the data to back any of this up. Heck, just a little over a week ago we heard the Switch 2 was breaking ground in Spain compared to Switch 1.
I think this is a great breaking point for the Switch era.
lol no
It’s had an amazing start, but the big novelty at Christmas continues to be VR. Switch 2 is not doing enough to appeal to younger children. They need a Mario and Zelda game made exclusively for the under-10s alongside new games for us older fans.
Kirby doesn’t sell consoles :)