Sorry physical fans - the relentless march of the ephemeral non-physical future continues according to Nintendo's freshly released financial results for the April-June period. The first quarter of the financial year sees the company's digital sales business in rude health with digital sales on Switch for the period totalling 30.6 billion yen (over $280 million / £230 million), a significant 65.3% increase from the same period in 2018.
This figure includes not only download versions and download-only games, but also add-on content and sales of Nintendo Switch Online, so while that sizeable jump is still indicative of the ongoing trend towards digital purchases, the addition of Nintendo's online subscription service is also partly responsible for growth in this area.
Overall, digital sales made up 38.3% of total video game sales for the company, compared to 24.2% for the same quarter last year. Elsewhere, the company's mobile concerns also saw a nice little year-on-year increase of 10% bringing in a cool 10 billion yen (approximately $92 million / £75 million) from the various Nintendo IP available on smartphone storefronts.
While Nintendo Switch Online may not have been the resounding success the company might have hoped, these results show that things are moving in the right direction from the perspective of the bottom line. And as much as we love physical media here at Nintendo Life, there seems to be no denying that the future is all digital.
Are you partly responsible for this increase in digital sales? Those eShop sales are too tempting, no? Let us know how your digital library is coming along with a comment in the appropriate place below.
[source nintendo.co.jp]
Comments 36
Yeah but digital sales still account for far less than half. Physical is still the way most people prefer. I generally prefer physical as well, but I am not a purist.
I'd also like to point out the growing number of download only titles likely accounting for some of the shift.
36 games all download, dont even have to get up to change games, wouldnt have it any other way
Agreed, while I love the big 100 hour games, i also like the small indie games that will never be digital. Plus, I do, sometimes, like DLC when well done. I try to buy physical, but my library is mostly digital.
Either way, this is good news for nintendo.
That figure is seriously clouded by the increase in amount of games that can only be purchased by download. Far more than this increase in money.
But unfortunately that amount of money with drive us all towards digital only systems in the future.
Digital is just so convinient. It's so annoying whenever I have to switch out the game cartridges to play a different game. I mostly buy digitally these days.
Yes, this is because of a lot of companies ONLY giving digital versions, ie code in a box, only one game on the cartridge in a "Collection" (wonder if they factored this in or if they saw it as a digital purchase) etc.
Hate it, give me physical, even if I have to pay the extortionate prices of Limited Run
I’m really afraid of Nintendo moving more towards the mobile front, since the 10 billion yen is not that far off the digital sales for the Switch (30 billion yen), while Nintendo only has a handful of mobile games currently...
Please don’t focus on pay to win games, Nintendo, don’t lose yourself to greed...!
Take these figures with a pinch of salt when you buy a physical game to only receive a download code.
We have reached a point where people not only doesn't complain about digital prices being higher than physical -when both versions are available, that is-, but even prefers digital for the convenience of not having to switch cards. They're even grateful. Companies did it, and we let them do it easier than expected.
I just made the switch from all physical to all digital about a month ago, I love it. I just have to be a little more careful when buying games I am not sure about due to not being able to resell.
Digital sales did great.... CANCEL GAME VOUCHERS!!! 🤪
Switch was the console that changed me from being a physical purist to embracing digital.
Digital is just so convenient on mobile console. Don't have to carry carts around, switch them out, worry about losing them, and truth be told.....I'm kinda glad I don't have as much plastic clutter I have to find a place for.
Combined with the fact that getting the full game physically is extremely rare due to all the patches and DLC and I've done a 180 on console digital games (despite being 100% digital on PC for many years).
Console digital really does need to change some things, though (at least Nintendo does, as I'm unsure of Sony and Microsofts stance). PC was easier to embrace, as you buy it and you still have it no matter how many times you change or upgrade hardware. All you need to do is login. Consoles need to make this shift, so your purchases on Switch translate to Switch 2 and so on.
To this day, PC remains the only market that I buy digital games in. If there is a physical option for the game on console, that is the option I go for. I don't see that changing any time soon for me.
So when Nintendo releases it's TV box it can be all digital. Hopefully the size of a Apple TV.
Who would've guessed that when greedy corporations start making games digital only that digital sales would rise.
@Xombie13 They didn’t cancel them though. The day they announced them in the first place, they also said it was a limited time offer in the US “ending on July 31.”
I’m bummed about it, because I’m 100% digital on Switch and I buy a lot of first party titles at full price. Hopefully they bring vouchers back every so often.
This is great news. I really hope that someone approves some much needed investment into the eShop and Online infrastructure off the back of this though.
They would sell a whole lot more if they had a dedicated team to surface the best games, organise all the games (painstakingly) so that you have accurate recommendations - like "you bought this, you played it for 40 hours, you should play this game or this game next".
@imgrowinglegs yeah I know it was a timed thing. I was just being goofy.
I wish they would just have it as a permanent part of Switch online. Just one of those added bonuses for not being able to message friends.
@Bunkerneath i can’t speak for the larger companies but being an indie game dev do you realize how much it costs to release on physical? for most indie devs it’s either release as digital or not at all
@sixrings i want this so bad. i hope this is the switch pro. no screen, no batt, just the SoC in a box
Digital should account for ~50% of Nintendo's revenue by this time next year.
"And as much as we love physical media here at Nintendo Life, there seems to be no denying that the future is all digital."
You know, the more you parrot this nonsense, the more you work to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe if everyone didn't just throw up the white-flag on day one we wouldn't be ushering in the demise of retro gaming, sharing games and the used market so quickly. Gamers are shooting themselves in the foot and ruining the future all for the sake of impatience and laziness.
You'd think as more and more houses become multi-Switch houses, especially with the Switch Lite, that people would wise up and realize one of the many benefits of having a physical cartridge that you can just buy once and share.
I would gladly go all digital if it were generally cheaper to do so on the Switch (can't speak for PC or other platforms). I just can't justify being stuck with a digital game that I 1) May only play once or 2) Will have a sequel eventually that makes it useless having an older version. So in that sense, its nice to have physical copies in case I want to resell the game. However, if the buy in cost digitally was more reasonable, I'd might feel a bit differently and probably move to mostly digital
I much prefer physical. You can resell it on EBay and you will always have it on cartridge, which you cannot say with digital. Once your hard drive goes and the switch online eshop is turned off...let me know how you’ll be downloading them. Imagine if the NES era had been digital...certain games would be gone forever unless you dig around for ROMS online. I’ll add, the argument that it takes too long to change cartridges is an argument that makes no sense at all. That whole 30 seconds is worth giving up resale ($$ in your pocket) and the great likelihood of eventually no longer being able to download your purchase? Poor trade off.
@UmbreonsPapa
Bingo. Why is digital, which cost less in packaging and in distribution, equal in price to the physical good? Because it maximizes the companies profits. The consumer is much better off going physical.
I'm all digital on the Switch - it just makes so much sense in terms of making it easy to have all your games with you on a single SD card with no need to swap cartridges.
Should add for clarification to several comments above, that physical and digital games cost the same amount as games companies have agreed this to keep physical retailers happy. Retailers would obviously not want digital to be cheaper as games companies would then have every incentive to maximise profits by encouraging consumers to buy directly from them rather than retailers - but retailers could then hit back by refusing to stock console hardware. So, both sides would lose out, hence the use of price parity. Stupid if you ask me - as this is just pandering to retailers, but there we go.
My guess is that 'physical' games won't ever go away in the sense that you will always be able to purchase a physical box in retail stores. The change I can see happening, however, is that in future boxes won't have cartridges, but simply include a download code as this will be massively cheaper to produce from the point of view of games companies.
Unsurprisingly.
They should just stop selling physical to force everyone to go 100% digital.
I’ve just realised I don’t have a single physical game on Switch... DOOM, Splatoon 2, MK8D, Wolf2... all digital. Quite startling actually when I look at my collection of Wii U games! My son has a good collection of Switch game cards and a few downloads, but all my purchases have been from the eShop.
The only Switch game card I have is the Labo VR. All my purchases are eShop
Just seen Turok 2 has just shown up on eShop for release 9th August
Always buying physical so no I am not supporting an all digital future. If they quit releasing physical copies I will just stop buying them.
In Digital We Trust.
@Heavyarms55 for the first time, the PS4 digital sales surpassed the physical with 53% of the games being sold were digital, probably thanks to the huge deals that were on lately but
I personally ok with that as I buy both physical and digital, depending on the game but I do have more digital as I like indies and all those 90-95% off cool indie games are very tempting
@Tantani Wow, didn't know that about PS4. But discounts like that would explain it.
Digital is an easy choice for me. I'm an adult, and I don't care about having a bunch of game boxes around that are useless to me and that take up space. I have 111 digital games for my Switch and I can switch from one to another in the matter of seconds without keeping physical carts around and changing them out. Digital is all about being convenient for me and gaming is a hobby to relax, and relaxing should be as convenient as possible. I know others will always prefer physical but those were my own reasons why I prefer digital.
I went all digital with the Wii U & also with the Switch. I have around 200 games downloaded on my 1TB micro SD card (which I bought during Amazon Prime Days).
@kevin74 That's quite the ephemerally game collection you have there which will be useless and unplayable in a few years.
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