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Nintendo said on Thursday it expected to sell 15mn units of its new Switch 2 console in its current fiscal year, undercutting market expectations as the Japanese video game company warned that US tariffs could wipe “tens of billions of yen” from profits.
The first sales projection for the Switch 2 comes a month ahead of the games industry’s most-anticipated hardware launch this year. The new machine has attracted strong global pre-orders despite a higher-than-expected $450 price tag in the US.
Analysts say the next-generation launch on June 5 creates a “transformative” moment for Super Mario’s creator. But looming over it are the “reciprocal” tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump in early April that could force significant cost increases for a machine assembled in Vietnam, Cambodia and China.
“It’s very tough for them to guess on sales figures this time around due to the tariff chaos,” said Serkan Toto, head of games consultancy Kantan Games.
Nintendo had bet on shifting more of its production away from China to Vietnam and Cambodia after the first Trump administration signalled it was willing to alter the terms of global trade.
Nintendo’s president Shuntaro Furukawa warned on Thursday that if additional tariffs were imposed, any resultant increase in the console price could reduce demand in the US. He added that tariffs would have a negative impact on profits of “tens of billions of yen”.
In a poll by Bloomberg, analysts predicted that on average Nintendo would sell 16.8mn units of the Switch 2 in the financial year ending in March 2026.
Despite the tariff threat, Nintendo’s share price is up 32.5 per cent so far this year, with investors betting on the long-term ability of the company to persuade many of the 152mn people who bought the original Switch device to upgrade to its successor.
The company will launch several titles with the new console, including the latest version of its blockbuster Mario Kart series.
For the financial year just ended in March, at the end of its current console cycle, Nintendo’s operating profit fell 46.6 per cent year on year to ¥282.5bn ($1.95bn). The company expects operating profits to rise 13 per cent to ¥320bn in the current financial year.
