This has been one heck of a year for Nintendo. The Switch is still selling at a remarkable rate despite being seven years old. Nintendo also saw success in the newly opened Super Nintendo World theme park at Universal Studios Hollywood in February, which gained praise for its many attractions such as the Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, a ride based on the Mario Kart series, and Bowser’s Castle which is a neat place where people can roam around its corridors.
Nintendo also hit a major milestone in April when The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released to worldwide acclaim. The video game world had been cursed for years when it came to turning beloved franchises into movies. Nintendo tried their hand at it back in the 80’s with Super Mario Bros., a movie that did so terrible that it caused Nintendo to never trust Hollywood again with its IPs for over 30 years. Video game movies have been a hit or miss since then, but thanks to the recent accomplishments of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, it looks like Nintendo decided to give one more crack at the movie scene and it paid off. At the time of this writing The Super Mario Bros. Movie has made about 1.349 billion global box-office revenue, the highest ever for a video game animated film, and it is currently the second highest grossing for an animated film, just behind the Disney movie Frozen II.
On the video game side of things, Nintendo has been having a great time. Tears of the Kingdom, the game we all know and love, was released in May and was a victory for Nintendo and Zelda fans alike. Teased in 2019, the world had been waiting for almost five years for this game, with only a drip feed of content being provided to the masses. This bold marketing move for Nintendo turned out to be the right move, as Tears of the Kingdom went on to sell amazingly well and bolster sales for Nintendo. Currently, Tears of the Kingdom has sold approximately 18.5 million units worldwide with no signs of slowing down. Many expect that these numbers will continue to grow and if any hint of DLC comes to light, this number will undoubtedly spike higher.
Rumors have been circulating again when it comes to a new Switch successor being released to the public. While old rumors from a couple years ago speculated that a new Switch would be announced for the latter half of 2023, Nintendo may have other plans. While we don’t have a new Switch announced as of yet, Nintendo is still making numbers with sales, with Pikmin 4 currently making waves. Other than a handful of games to be released for this year, (my personal favorite being the incoming Super Mario RPG Remaster), it seems like Nintendo is starting to quiet down on their end. But if there is one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that Nintendo always has an hidden ace up their sleeve to surprise everyone.
