Nintendo Switch 2 sales drop 41% as AI memory shortage bites

Nintendo sold 2.67 million Switch 2 units in the three months ended September 30, down 41% from the same period last year, CNBC reported.

President Shuntaro Furukawa identified a global memory shortage, driven by artificial intelligence demand, as the largest factor behind the Switch 2 price hikes Nintendo rolled out in the U.S., Canada and Japan during the quarter. The U.S. price rose $50 to $499.99 on September 30. Nintendo quantified the impact at approximately ¥100 billion ($637.8 million) in additional operating expenses for fiscal year 2027.

Furukawa called it a moment where "the market environment is indeed challenging". LPDDR5X module prices have climbed 41% as HBM demand for AI pulls memory supply.

Revenue came in at 448.2 billion yen ($2.8 billion) against a 481.37 billion yen consensus; net profit of 73.5 billion yen fell short of the 82.16 billion yen expected.

Despite the miss, Nintendo kept its full-year Switch 2 forecast at 16.5 million units through March 2027. Furukawa said the company has enough memory to meet that forecast and is not considering further price changes. This is one of the first clean reads of how AI memory demand is landing on a consumer-hardware P&L; our tracker has logged 467 AI infrastructure stories in the last 90 days, nearly all of them on the datacenter side.