The giants of the gaming industry offer their customers more service with subscription services, but of course they should also bring a lot of money into the coffers. Numbers that have surfaced reveal how much revenue Nintendo earns with Switch Online.
Nintendo cashes in: Good sales achieved with Switch Online
Companies like Sony (PS Plus), Xbox (Xbox Game Pass) and Nintendo (Switch Online) offer you various extra services as a subscription. The whole thing wasn’t just created to please gamers, though – in the end should with subscriptions money to be earned.
We recently reported on numbers that have surfaced for the Xbox Game Pass. According to them, the company probably took in 2.9 billion US dollars in 2021. Microsoft itself speaks of having 30 to 40 percent of the market share. Sony assumes 40 to 50 percent, but there are no sales here (source: Brad Sams on YouTube).
Nintendo reached Switch Online in 2021 with its subscription service (see now on Amazon) sales of approximately $932 million – that corresponds to about 31 percent of digital income. In total, Nintendo has generated digital-only sales of $3 billion. In addition to subscription sales, this also includes games purchased digitally via Nintendo’s eShop.
With these numbers, Nintendo can definitely keep up with Xbox. However, a comparison is only possible to a limited extent, as Xbox Game Pass and Switch Online are very different. While Xbox Game Pass gives you access to a large library of games, including the latest titles, the main advantages of Switch Online are the ability to play online and a selection of classic NES and Super NES games.
The number of Switch Online subscribers is growing steadily
TweakTown journalist Derek Strickland also published a chart showing that The number of subscriptions has steadily increased in recent years. While there were around three million subscribers in the third quarter of 2019, the number has already risen to 32 million by the second quarter of 2022.
This could be related to additional options. With points such as the expansion pack, which you can use to extend your subscription, you also get access to an ever-growing collection of Nintendo 64 and SEGA Mega Drive (games) classics as well as paid downloads for selected Nintendo Switch games ( Source: Nintendo).
