Nintendo wants to sell an ‘aggressive’ 13.5 million Switch consoles by March 2025

Nintendo has revealed it had sold 15.7 million Nintendo Switch consoles during its 2024 fiscal year, bringing total lifetime sales to 141.32. While this is less than what it managed the year before, Nintendo still seems pleased with the results, but intends to push at least another 13.5 million units by the end of next March.

This data comes from a financial report published by Nintendo on May 7, which says Switch sales for the 2024 fiscal year are down compared to the year before, but that’s to be expected considering the console’s over seven years old. While the company is typically reserved about its plans for the future, it has shared its forecasts for the 2025 fiscal year, alongside an announcement for its next console, which it will be properly unveiling in the next 12 months and is rumoured to be launching in 2025.

Nintendo’s forecast for the 2024 fiscal year included 15.5 million Switch units sold (per CNBC), which it just about managed. As such, it’s predicting a smaller amount for the 2025 fiscal year (which covers April 2024 to March 2025). However, 13.5 million sales is still surprisingly large considering the console’s age and the fact people are now feverishly waiting for the Switch 2 (or whatever it’s actually called). Dr Serkan Toto, CEO of game industry consultancy Kantan Games has described it as a “very aggressive target” in a statement to VGC.

“You never know with Nintendo, but it looks like they’re treating 2024 as a bridge year before the new console comes out. 13.5 million units is a very aggressive target for hardware sales that late in the life cycle, so it either has some bangers to be released this fiscal or it will finally cut prices at some point in the near future,” said Toto. Currently, Nintendo’s only first-party titles scheduled to launch this year are the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake (which is out this month) and the Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD remaster. It also has Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which is planned for 2025, as well as Metroid Prime 4 though that game still lacks any sort of launch window

The company obviously has unannounced titles planned for the second half of 2024 but, as Toto said, they’ll have to be something special to get new customers to buy a Switch ahead of its successor. Either that or slash prices, which it could very well do to make the current Switch an enticing alternative to the next console. Nintendo’s report even mentions how it wants to “not only put one system in every home, but several in every home, or even one for every person.”

There’s no telling if Nintendo could pull such a feat off but, if it does meet its 13.5 million sales target, that’ll push the Switch’s lifetime sales to just under 155 million. As such, it could potentially overtake the Nintendo DS’ lifetime sales of 154.02 million, thus making the Switch the best-selling Nintendo console of all time. This would still position it beneath the PlayStation 2, though. That thing remains the best-selling video game console of all time, with it believed to have pushed about 160 million units according to former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan (per VGC).