Zelda’s Tears of the Kingdom Powers Nintendo to New Levels

Released in May, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has already sold 18.5M units — becoming Nintendo’s fastest-selling game and the third-highest-rated game of all time, per OpenCritic.

This powered Nintendo’s quarterly operating earnings to a record high of $1.3B, with sales rising 50% from the previous year. And Zelda wasn’t the only power-up in the quarter.

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s release also brought in $1.3B in box office sales and tripled Nintendo’s licensing royalties.
• Super Nintendo World opened in Hollywood’s Universal, with Florida’s expected to open in 2025.

According to FT, analysts see Nintendo characters as “the most valuable entertainment IP properties in the world” outside of Disney’s IP.

A decision to monetize Nintendo’s IP in recent years has helped drive up purchases on its other games like Mario Kart — and sent the total annual number of playing Nintendo users to a record 116M. But keeping the momentum won’t be easy.

Power-ups can’t keep the party going forever

Released over six years ago, the Switch is the third-best-selling console of all time with 129.5M units sold — putting it close to the record holder PS2’s 159M.

• But the Switch is becoming increasingly outdated — and performance is falling further behind other consoles.
• Sony and Microsoft released newer versions of their consoles two years ago — but Nintendo has yet to announce a successor.

Console cycles typically last roughly five years, and Switch sales have been slowing before the recent quarter. Analysts are expecting a newer, updated Switch by next year — but topping the popular console isn’t going to be easy.

Past consoles have rotated between hits and flops — and investors (and gamers) will be hoping they don’t roll out another Wii U this time.