[_2d30]

> Nintendo as a company makes more money on selling consoles, than on Zelda.

In revenue or profit? It’s kind of definitional that there’s more revenue from the console than the game given that for any console you need to purchase on average ~1 game at most and a game is worth far less than a console. However, it’s my understanding consoles are generally loss leaders, priced at or below cost in anticipation of profit driven by sales of content.

[friendlybus]

68mil Nintendo Switches sold.

19mil Breath of the Wild (Zelda)

21mil Smash bros

28mil Animal Crossing

The gamecube and the wii were reasonably cheap hardware with a markup. I haven't researched the switch, it looks no different to me.

*updated to sep2020 figs

[onebot]

What are the margins. I can almost certainly say that the margins on the games are far greater than the hardware.

[friendlybus]

In 2017 Nintendo sold roughly $257 of Switch hardware for $300. 40 dollar profit. They might have increased the margin since then.

A $60 game is sold to a retailer for $38-45. The publisher takes 20 of that (nintendo in this case) and the advertising & developer take the remaining 20. So nintendo probably takes 40 dollars profit from first party games like Zelda.

Margins on consoles used to be lower, $10-20 and they'd make $40 on the controller sales. The joycons on the switch cost 45 to make and sold for 50. The margin is back into the console as a whole again.

Digital sales on ingame items are likely close to pure profit.