(News Bulletin 247) – The Kyoto group has raised its outlook for its entire 2023-2024 financial year, highlighting the positive contribution to its game sales from the success of the film “Super Mario Bros” released in the spring.

Japanese video game pioneer Nintendo raised its annual forecasts on Tuesday, confident in its game sales, particularly of the Mario franchise, to support those of its aging Switch console and helped by exchange rate effects which flatter its revenues abroad. .

For its entire 2023-2024 financial year, which will end at the end of next March, Nintendo is now counting on a net profit down 3% year-on-year, to 420 billion yen (2.6 billion euros) compared to a previous forecast of 340 billion yen.

The company expects an operating profit almost unchanged over one year, at 500 billion yen (3.1 billion euros), instead of 450 billion yen forecast until then. It also expects sales to fall slightly by 1.4%, to 1,580 billion yen (9.8 billion euros), instead of a drop of 9.5% previously anticipated.

The plumber Mario in support

Nintendo highlighted in its press release the positive impact on its game sales of the success of the “Super Mario Bros” film released in the spring.

The Kyoto (western Japan) firm unveiled in September a series of games scheduled for release in the coming months, including many remakes of old titles in the Mario universe, such as “Mario vs Donkey Kong”, “Luigi’s Mansion 2D” or “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door”.

It is also banking on original titles in this universe, with the release at the end of October of the original platform game “Super Mario Bros. Wonder”, and another centered on Princess Peach planned for next March.

Its objective is “to continually release new titles in order (…) to boost console sales”, explained the company in a press release. The positive effects of the fall in the yen should also boost its sales outside Japan.

A Switch 2 at the end of 2024?

But a big question mark continues to hover over its future console, the only one able to prevent the group’s results from collapsing beyond the next few months.

For several years, numerous rumors have been circulating about the one that will succeed the Switch, released in 2017 and sold more than 132 million copies (at the end of September), making it the third best-selling console of all time, behind Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Nintendo’s DS. But nothing has been confirmed by the group so far.

In its first half (April-September), Nintendo recorded a net profit of 271.3 billion yen (+17.7% year-on-year). Over the same period, its operating profit jumped 27%, to 279.9 billion yen, and its sales climbed 21.2%, to 796.2 billion yen.

(With AFP)