During Nvidia’s fiscal second-quarter earnings call Wednesday afternoon, Chief Executive Jensen Huang highlighted the Nintendo Switch, noting that the console is about to sell “more than all the Famicom—referring to the company’s original home gaming system also known as the NES that sold big in the 1980s. He is likely behind the news a bit: Life-to-date sales of the Switch as of June 30 were 61.4 million units compared with 61.9 million for the company’s NES, according to Nintendo, and the Switch has recently been averaging sales of nearly 2 million units a month due to heavy demand from locked-down families. Unlike the Xbox and PlayStation consoles—powered by chips from Advanced Micro Devices —the Nintendo Switch uses Nvidia’s Tegra processor. And reports that Nintendo is boosting its annual Switch production by 3 million units could bring an additional $100 million in revenue to Nvidia in the second half of this year, estimates Christopher Rolland of Susquehanna. But the Switch still has a ways to go to make Mr. Huang’s prediction of becoming “the most successful gaming platform of all time.” Nintendo’s own Wii system has sold more than 101 million units to date.

Source: Wall Street Journal August 20, 2020 19:30 UTC