Looking to the future, Nintendo leverages its past

Here’s one name that’ll take you on a stroll down memory lane: Mario.

Nintendo isn’t known for world-class gaming machines, but it’s darn good at building fun, enduring hardware platforms that leverage its massive content library.

That strategy has proven really successful

The OG Wii sold 100m+ consoles less than 7 years after launch, and 9 Wii games have sold 10m+ units (82m for Wii Sports, arguably the greatest game in history).

Nintendo’s Switch — which came out 4 years ago and is in the middle of its product life cycle — is still selling like bonkers:

• Demand is up +36% year-over-year
• Cumulative sales volume reached ~80m
• 20% of sales from October through December 2020 were for multi-console households

On the games side, Nintendo titles released a year ago or earlier accounted for as much as 80% of sales (translation: Nintendo’s old games are still 🔥… ).

Now Nintendo has some big plans in store

The company recently reported an operating profit of 229.7B yen ($2.2B). That’s well above the 189.6B yen analysts expected, but Nintendo is still looking to diversify.

Digital sales accounted for 41% of all Nintendo software sales and grew 105% year-over-year.

The company also plans to open its Osaka-based $580m Super Nintendo World theme park in the coming weeks.

If we ever make it to Japan, going there is a top priority.