Nintendo raised its sales forecast for the Switch handheld console for the full fiscal year to 15.5 million units. The previous forecast value was 15 million devices. The revised forecast comes as the company ramped up sales of the legacy console during the holiday shopping season late last year.

With the Switch hybrid console now in its eighth year on the market, expectations are growing that Nintendo will release a new device this year.

“We want to maintain the momentum of the Switch business,” said Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa.

In the first 9 months of the fiscal year, the company sold 13.74 million Switch units. This is 8% less than in the same period a year earlier.

The Switch’s life cycle has been extended by a number of hits, such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which came out last May, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which went on sale in October and has already sold more than 10 million copies.

For the entire time that the Switch console has been on the market, which includes the Switch Lite and Switch OLED versions, it has surpassed the Wii model in terms of sales. It is now the second most popular of the company’s consoles after the Nintendo DS.

Kantan Games founder Serkan Toto expects the new Nintendo device to be released later this year at a price of around $400.

“There will certainly be new games for the Switch for some time, given the huge base of the current model,” he added.

Source: reuters