Nintendo plans to ramp up production of the Switch for the upcoming fiscal year starting in March, according to a Bloomberg report citing anonymous sources. The news comes on the same weekend as the company’s first major release in 2023, Enable fire emblemand ahead of the long-awaited The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which will go on sale in May.
Nintendo has reportedly been pinging its suppliers and assembly partners about increasing production without putting a firm figure on its expectations. In November, the company had cut its sales forecast for Switch for the current year to 19 million (down from the initial 21 million in May) due to continued component shortages, but sources said the number would be around 21 million originally had been predicted. .
The planned increase also comes after a holiday season that started with record sales of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet — which sold a total of 10 million copies in three days in November. Overall, the Switch has outsold rival consoles, the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, by 2022, according to NPD data. It even surpassed lifetime sales of Nintendo’s old Wii console, which topped 101 million units, with a game lineup highlighted by Switch sports and Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
The new Zelda game, along with Picmin 4, may spark even more interest in the aging and decreasingly powerful handheld. And for people who have played their launch hardware, it may be time to replace it due to aging batteries or other hardware wear and tear. That screen on the OLED model is still a joy to play on, even if it’s not 4K.
