Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ended March 2019
Sales per
Hardware Unit
Platform
Total sales (yen)
Software Attach Rate
Software units sold
Hardware units soldHardware units sold
= =
I’d now like to address the Nintendo Switch business
from a slightly different angle. One conventional metric
used in the dedicated platform business is the
tie ratio
,
or the attach rate of software per unit of hardware. This
is calculated by dividing the number of software units
sold by the number of hardware units sold. However,
with the rise in digital sales, we are witnessing the rapid
sales growth of indie titles at a wide range of price
points, and add-on content sales that cannot be counted
with the number of software units sold. As a result,
software attach rate calculated using conventional
methods no longer adequately reflects the actual state
of our business.
Instead, we would like to look at "sales per hardware
unit," which is the overall sales for the platform divided
by sales of the hardware itself. Note that this is
calculated based on sales recognized by the company,
and it differs from individual consumer spending.
37,000
39,800
42,100
41,700
49,000
55,000
Sales Per Hardware Unit (Cumulative)
Wii
Source: Nintendo
Yen
Yen
Yen
Yen
Yen
Yen
1st FY
Sales
2nd FY
Sales
3rd FY
Sales
Japan/ The Ameri cas/E urope cum ula ti ve tot al sal es at the end of ea ch fis cal ye ar, adjus ted for exch ange rat es ba sed on the
av erage rat e for th e f iscal ye ar ended March 2019, di vid ed by con so le sel l -in nu mbers ./S ource: Ni ntend o
Nintendo Switch
This graph shows the sales trends per Nintendo Switch
system for each fiscal year. It is based on the total
numbers at the end of the fiscal year for each of the
three major regions, adjusted to account for differing
exchange rates. For comparison, sales per Wii system
are shown in gray. The figures on the slide include
hardware and software sales, sales of accessories like
Joy-Con controllers and the Nintendo Switch Pro
Controllers, sales of titles from other software
publishers physically manufactured by Nintendo on
commission, add-on content sold digitally, and Nintendo
Switch Online revenue.
A straightforward comparison is difficult due to the
original prices and bundle specifications of Nintendo
Switch and Wii hardware being different. That said, you
can see that Nintendo Switch has seen a significant rise
in sales per hardware unit year by year, and sales are
higher than for Wii.