Nintendo Switch Online

Nintendo sells 5 million Switches in six months ended September 30, game copies up 91%

Nintendo sold 5.07 million Switch hybrid consoles in the first half of 2018, but revenues grew only 4 percent to $3.9 billion in the six months ended September 30.

The Kyoto, Japan-based company said profit was $815 million, up 32 percent from a year earlier. Nintendo said it would not change its previous forecast for the fiscal year.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze sold 1.67 million copies since its release in May, and Mario Tennis Aces sold 2.16 million copies since June. Total software sales for the first half of the fiscal year for the Nintendo Switch are 42.13 million copies, up 91 percent from a year earlier.

The classic consoles, NES Classic Edition and Super NES Classic Edition, sold 3.69 million units. In December, Nintendo will release Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. And Pokemon: Let’s Go! Pikachu and Let’s Go! Eevee will debut in November.

Nintendo plans to release Mario Kart Tour for smartphones in the coming months. Nintendo has now sold 22.8 million Switch consoles to date, and it has sold 111 million Switch games. Smartphone game sales were $161 million for the six months ended September 30. Nintendo sold 1 million 3DS handheld units in the six months ended September 30.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.