Nintendo has today published its financial report for Q2 FY2024 and it looks like things have been going really rather well. On top of some meaty sales figures for the likes of Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4 and the Switch console itself, the report finds that Nintendo's sales in the first half of the fiscal year have been "the largest since the launch of Nintendo Switch".
Comprising sales from hardware, software and other "mobile, IP related income" like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, apps and the like, Nintendo's ¥796.2 billion sales from Q1-Q2 this fiscal year have trumped all other first-half earnings from the Switch's lifetime — which, when you consider that this console is knocking on its seventh anniversary, isn't bad going.
For reference, Nintendo's previous top-earning first half since the Switch's launch came in Q1-Q2 of FY2021, where the company achieved a sales figure of ¥769.5 billion (and that accounted for the boom of Switch sales during the global pandemic).
The Super Mario Bros. Movie has certainly gone a long way to achieve the impressive sales figures from the first half of this fiscal year, and Nintendo specifically references the Illumination film and the "significant deprecation of the yen" as some of the reasons for the six-month figure:
Sales in the first half of the fiscal year were the largest since the launch of Nintendo Switch, due to an increase in sales in our dedicated video game platform business, as well as a rise in mobile and IP related income (including revenue associated with The Super Mario Bros. Movie), coupled with the significant depreciation of the yen.
It's worth bearing in mind that the latest figure only tops Nintendo's previous Q1-Q2 earnings. The company has recorded higher six-month figures in the past (such as in Q3-Q4 FY2021 where net sales reached ¥989.4 billion) and it is often the case that these latter quarters outperform the first two thanks to increased spending during the holiday season.
With FY2024 seeing the likes of the Mario Movie, Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Wonder and the Switch's continued success, it will be interesting to see how the fiscal year matches up against Nintendo's previous top earners in six months' time.