The success of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and The Super Mario Bros. Movie have resulted in record-breaking profits for Nintendo.
That sound of clinking you can hear in the background? It’s my garden gate opening and closing in this dreadful British summer weather we’ve been having. But if you happened to be sitting in Nintendo’s offices right now, the clinking might be champagne glasses – or maybe cups of tea or coffee if it’s the morning in Japan.
August 3 saw Nintendo publish its financial results for the first quarter of 2023, and predictably, the company’s profits have been positively gargantuan.
From those results (via Kotaku), we can glean that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has sold 18.41 million units in its first six weeks on sale – between 12 May and 30 June this year. The Breath of the Wild sequel has been so successful, in fact, that Nintendo has said that its sales have accounted for half of all the first-party software sold by the firm since the financial year began in April.
Most impressively, Nintendo has stated that, while initial sales were driven by those who’d played Breath of the Wild, the company has since seen “that a growing percentage of purchases are being made by consumers who have not yet played that title.”
Nintendo’s other big financial win so far this year is The Super Mario Bros. Movie. According to Nintendo’s report, 168.1 million people have watched the film adaptation worldwide, and that it’s taken $1.3 billion at the global box-office.
All of this has meant that Nintendo has set a new record for first-quarter profit, with sales amounting to a total of $3.2 billion so far this financial year. And while hardware sales have slowed somewhat, Nintendo has still sold 3.9 million Switch consoles in the same period, with those sales largely put down to the hot-cakes success of Tears of the Kingdom.
It’s impressive numbers, no doubt, and Nintendo will no doubt be glad it took the gamble of making another Super Mario Bros. movie after the widespread panning the bizarre live-action attempt received back in 1993.
What remains to be seen is whether Nintendo can sustain the momentum through the rest of 2023, given its biggest hitters – Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Detective Pikachu Returns aside – have already been released.
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