Nintendo's share price has dropped on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following yesterday's Q3 FY2023 Financial Report (via VGC). The company's price dropped by around 7% since yesterday's report, and at the time of writing, it currently sits at ¥5,226, which is down from ¥5,624.
This drop doesn't come as a huge surprise due to the company's slightly disappointing results, where Nintendo revealed that it's cutting sales forecasts after a decline in year-on-year sales in hardware and software. Other than reducing its year-end forecast for Switch sales again, from 19 million to 18 million, Nintendo is still staying quiet about a successor, despite the console about to enter its seventh year on the market.
The Big N already lowered its expectations for Switch sales in the last quarter, with the company reducing its outlook from 21 million to 19 million. If Switch sales manage to hit the new 18 million estimate, that means that hardware sales will have declined for the Switch two years in a row.
It might look like grim reading, but there's some good out of all of this. Nintendo is raising Japanese employee salaries by 10% despite the dip in sales, and digital sales now make up nearly half of game sales on the console. Digital sales are also up 21.5% year-on-year, meaning that Nintendo is succeeding with its existing user base.
If that wasn't enough good news, we have a Nintendo Direct to look forward to today, which should bring with it a healthy dose of upcoming Switch game news, including (hopefully) a better look a Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is Nintendo's big game for the first half of 2023.