In news that shouldn’t surprise anyone, the Switch Lite reveal was a massive hit for Nintendo; both publicly and for their bottom line.
Nintendo’s stock rose as much as 4.5 per cent to ¥41,780 ($386.5) in Tokyo trading, the highest its been since October, according to the Financial Times.
The outlook for the rest of the year is extremely favorable for Nintendo as well. The Switch Lite releases on the same day as the highly anticipated Zelda Link’s Awakening and there will be a special edition to coincide with Pokemon Sword and Shield; a title that is sure to top the sales charts.
Wedbush Securities Analyst Michael Pachter foresees massive success for Nintendo this fall. He expects Nintendo to ship 20 million Switch hardware units and 140 million Switch software units in the fiscal year ending in March 2020, up from his previous guidance of 18 million and 125 million respectively. Noting that Switch Lite is likely to be supply constrained through the end of the calendar year, he estimates the device will ship 8.5 million units this fiscal year and 11.5 million the following year.
“The timing of the release appears favorable,” he wrote, “given that it is roughly two months ahead of Black Friday, and occurring at a time when sales of the PS4 and Xbox One should ramp down ahead of the console refreshes from Sony and Microsoft at holiday 2020, giving Switch Lite a roughly fourteen month head start.”
Our Take
As we said, this should surprise no one. The Switch was already a run away success and the Lite is only going to bolster that success further. Regardless what you think of Nintendo’s direction or priorities, one thing is clear. They’ve hit the mark for their fanbase with the Switch and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
What doesn’t surprise is Pachter having being completely and utterly wrong yet again and changing his predictions.
He stated specifically at the launch of Switch, that 100mil would be unatainable, thst 50mil was his prediction, well if Nintendo does get this 20mil suggested in the next financial year, Nintendo would’ve broke that 50mil and be on the same trajectory as PS4 to 100mil also. Depending Nintendo’s future strategy, maybe even faster