Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei has painted a very grim picture of the Nintendo Switch in their latest report, contrary to what Nintendo and others have been saying in the last few days.
The report starts off with Nikkei saying that the Nintendo Switch is, very worryingly, “lacking momentum” before the holiday season. While Nikkei has already analyzed Nintendo’s latest fiscal report and called it “pretty strong” for the company, they pointed out that the only Switch games performing well are those released in 2017.
That is apparently a bad thing because Nikkei says there’s yet to be an “explosive” Switch title released before the holiday season. Nikkei then looked back at September’s Nintendo Labo Vehicle Kit, which failed to sell many units to be a “huge hit”.
Following those statements, Nikkei claimed Nintendo Switch hardware sales are slowing down in Japan, and worse, falling at a rapid rate in the west. The paper claimed since this summer many small retailers in the United States have been offering Nintendo Switch bundles packaged with software titles at “half price”.
An industry contact told Nikkei that is a sign “the Switch is languishing in the west”, and claimed the “entire video game industry is looking forward to Sony’s next console”.
While Nikkei’s report does contain some truth, the paper did not take into account that all video game hardware sales are on a downward trend in Japan, nothing surprising as they will spike during the holiday season. Games such as Super Mario Party, Octopath Traveler, Mario Tennis Aces, and Kirby Star Allies have been relatively successful this year.
The flawed report was condemned by Nintendo fans all over Japan, with some saying that Nikkei is “out of touch” with the industry, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let’s GO Pikachu/Eevee aren’t out yet, and evergreen titles like Splatoon 2 and Super Mario Odyssey selling well into 2018 aren’t a bad omen for Nintendo Switch.
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