Rakuten Securities, the securities arm of Japanese conglomerate Rakuten, has published a report on Nintendo’s performance for the period ending December 31, 2018 and their forecast for Nintendo Switch.

The firm expects Nintendo to sell 18 million Switch consoles by the end of this fiscal year. They also believe Switch sales continue to remain slow in the 2018 fiscal year. They attributed sluggish sales to Nintendo not doing enough marketing in fiscal Q1 and Q2 2018, and the lack of big releases such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let’s GO Pikachu/Eevee in the first half of the fiscal year.

Other reasons also include the fact many casual users are hooked onto smartphones, and the lack of big third party Switch releases that include “violent games”, “action games”, and “high definition graphics games”.

Rakuten Securities believes Nintendo will face a challenge to convince casual users to purchase Nintendo Switch in 2020. They also cited the Pokemon 2019 RPG and Animal Crossing Switch as very important titles for Nintendo to succeed in 2019.

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