Nintendo has shared the official English translation for its recent end-of-year financial Q&A, in which the board of directors was asked to clarify a couple of details regarding the Switch 2 sales forecast.
In case you missed it, Nintendo last week shared that it is expecting to shift 15 million Switch 2 units in the console's first fiscal year. This number is a marginal increase from what Switch 1 managed back in 2017, but perhaps isn't the open-floodgate rush that many expected — particularly given its impressive pre-order interest numbers in Japan.
In the Q&A accompanying this announcement, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked to explain the company's thought process behind this "conservative" figure, and he rather candidly said that the console's much-discussed price was a factor in its calculation.
"Nintendo Switch 2 is priced relatively high compared to Nintendo Switch, so we recognise that there are corresponding challenges to early adoption," Furukawa stated. "That being said," he continued, "Nintendo Switch 2 can play compatible Nintendo Switch software, so there is continuity between the platforms".
Furukawa points to the Mario Kart World Switch 2 bundle as one of the ways that the company is aiming to "accelerate adoption in the first fiscal year," all in the hopes of Nintendo achieving "the same start we did with Nintendo Switch".
While these solutions may help with early adoption, Furukawa mentions later in the Q&A that the console price also runs the risk of damaging sales in the long run. "Even if there is momentum around the launch," he states, "we know it will not be easy to keep that momentum going over the long term through the holiday season and beyond".
The momentum we have immediately after the Nintendo Switch 2 launch is important, of course, but the first challenge we face is how to sustain that momentum and carry it into the holiday season
Furukawa doesn't specify any other reasons for the 15 million sales forecast, though he reiterates that neither production issues nor US tariffs influenced the prediction. "In order to achieve sales of 15 million units, we will need to manufacture the hardware in quantities greater than that," he noted, "we are working to strengthen our production capacity so we can respond flexibly to demand".
The rest of the Q&A focuses on similar topics, with everyone clearly after more info on Switch 2 sales. Throughout, Furukawa reaffirms that Nintendo will "continually produce and ship significant numbers of Nintendo Switch 2 units going forward," and that the company will make an effort "to exceed our forecast".
Discussion of anything else is pretty scarce, though Furukawa does take the opportunity to once again speak to the Switch 2's perceived lack of inventiveness in a late question:
It may appear that there is not a major change between Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch. However, we have created new hardware and accessories from the ground up, and these are products very characteristic of Nintendo, packed full of our development team's dedication to quality through various creative efforts and integrated hardware-software development
Switch 2 is the "new standard for Nintendo Switch," according to Furukawa, so don't expect to see the company turn its back on this format any time soon.