Nintendo stock dips after memory chip shortage and lack of recent hits takes toll on earnings

Nintendo‘s stock took a slight dip, down about 0.8%, after it reported its earnings for the three months ended September 30.

The Kyoto, Japan-based company said it sold 2.67 million units of the Switch 2 in the quarter, down about 41% from a year earlier and also lower than the 3.82 million units it sold in the June 2026 quarter. Part of the reason was that Nintendo had to raise prices for the Switch 2 in September to deal with rising memory chip prices in the U.S. and Canada. Nintendo’s contracts on memory expired and it had to start buying those chips at higher prices.

But the company has launched The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, starting yesterday and some hope the remake will boost Switch 2 sales this quarter. But it will go up against Grand Theft Auto VI, which comes out on November 19. That game, which is arriving 13 years after its predecessor, is the most anticipated game in history, and it won’t run on the Switch 2 — only the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 at the outset.

To date, Nintendo said it has sold 26.35 million Switch 2 hardware units, and 73.21 million copies of software. The Switch 2 came out in June 2025 amid the onset of Donald Trump’s tariffs. The original Switch, which debuted in 2017, and it has sold 157.2 million units to date and 1.593 billion copies of software.

Memory chips are in short supply in part because memory chip makers are busy making high-bandwidth memory for AI chips, which are in high demand thanks to skyrocketing AI usage and high demand for processors from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. The shortage of memory is expected to last for years.

Despite the setback in the September 30 quarter, Nintendo has not changed its forecast of selling 16.5 million Switch 2 units in the current fiscal year ending March 2027.

Revenue in the quarter was $2.8 billion (448.2 billion yen), compared with 481.37 billion yen expected. Net profit was 73.5 billion yen, compared to expectations of 82.16 billion yen.

Here’s how Nintendo did in its fiscal second quarter, compared with LSEG average estimates:

Some recent hits include Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream and Pokémon Pokopia.

Star Fox, released in June, sold 1.17 million units. Splatoon Raiders, released in July, sold 2.42 million units. Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, released in September, sold 1.34 million units. Mario Kart World and Pokémon Pokopia continued to sell well.