• Nintendo had its best first quarter ever on the back of the success of Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
• The company saw its operating profit rise by 82.4 percent year-on-year to to ¥185.4 billion.
• With more IP to mine and a new console rumoured for next year, the coming quarters look bright for the Japanese company.

If you are a shareholder or investor in Nintendo, this week is shaping up to be a good one as the Japanese company has published its results for the first quarter of the financial year ending March 2023.

The results have seen Nintendo post a record profit for a first quarter, with two properties in particular aiding in the successful Q1 2024 – namely the Super Mario Bros. animated film that released in April last year and the sequel to Breath of the Wild, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

According to Nintendo, its net sales climbed 50 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching an estimated ¥461.3 billion (~$3.2 billion). As for operating profit, which is the key metric for the record setting quarter, it increased significantly by 82.4 percent year-on-year to ¥185.4 billion (~$1.3 billion).

As The Verge notes, this new record setting quarter beats Q1 of 2020, where the Japanese company performed well on the back of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which is one of the gaming titles that people could not get enough of during the pandemic and lockdown.

Shifting back to the two IP that boosted numbers for this latest quarterly report and the Super Mario Bros. animated film grossed more than $1 billion worldwide in cinemas, with the movie’s release also aiding in the sales of other Mario games.

As for Tears of the Kingdom, it currently ranks as the ninth best-selling Nintendo console game, with 18.51 million units shipping since launch, and no doubt bringing newcomers to the Zelda series to other games in the franchise too.

While it remains to be seen what the coming quarters will hold, movies appear to be a great way for Nintendo to leverage some of its existing and wildly popular IP, especially given the opportunities for crossovers.

Looking to the future, rumours this week note that a new console is finally on the way too, although it is said to only be releasing in late-2024. While we await more tangible news of a new console, we’d like to direct you to the below video which features Jack Black singing the absolute banger, Peaches, as Bowser.