Nintendo Switch had a massive, record-breaking 2017. And GameStop expects it to be post up another big one for 2018.
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More specifically, GameStop is expecting the Nintendo Switch to make GameStop a lot of cash, again.
In 2017, the Nintendo hybrid console was one of the biggest profit drivers, according to the American video game and consumer electronics store. For the last and most recent financial quarter, hardware sales rose an impressive 44.8 percent year-on-year, which was apparently led by everyone and their cousin buying the Nintendo machine and its games.
Just in 2017 alone, hardware sales rose 28.3 percent. And while the PS4 and Xbox One are still selling quite well — particularly the former — they aren’t the cause of that spike. The Switch is.
All of that said, during a recent GameStopfinancial call, the Nintendo Switch naturally came up. More specifically, one investor wondered whether the console’s terrific attachment rate will continue to trend upwards as more systems are sold and enter the consumer wilds. To which, GameStop CEO Michael Mauler replied:
“Yeah, I think that’s a fair question with Nintendo. I mean we know kind of what happened with Wii U. I’d say this is definitely a whole different platform than we saw in the past. We have visibility to the software. So last year was a tremendous year for the software, as well as hardware between Zelda and Mario Odyssey and all the games that they had really drove a lot of hardware sales, as well as software.
I think this year when we look at the slate of titles, many of which haven’t been announced yet, this year looks also very, very strong. So I think, at least, for 2018, we’ll continue to see the strong software slate drive additional installed base on the hardware and increase attach rate. We don’t have really visibility for 2019 yet, but for 2018 it should play out that way.”
Interestingly, Mauler mentions how just like 2017, 2018 looks strong software wise for the Switch. However, he also subtly added that many of titles haven’t been announced yet. This seems to imply that perhaps Mauler knows what said unannounced games are, and seemingly confirms that there will be titles of significant note announced sometime in the near future.
What those games will be, remains to be seen. One of them is surely the mystery Super Smash Bros. game, but what else does Nintendo have up its sleeve? My guess is we will find out come E3 this June.
