NINTENDO SEES DWINDLING IMPACT FROM PANDEMIC MEGAHIT GAME

Nintendo’s April-June profit declined 13% from the same period the previous year when the hit game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” dramatically boosted sales.

Nintendo Co.’s profit for the fiscal first quarter totaled 92.7 billion yen ($843 million), down from 106 billion yen, the Japanese maker of “Super Mario” and “Pokemon” games said Thursday.

Quarterly sales fell 10% to 322.6 billion yen ($2.9 billion).

Sales of the Switch consoles dropped nearly 22% during the quarter to 4.45 million units, mainly because of the sales decline of the smaller Switch Lite, dedicated to handheld playing. The regular Switch works for both traditional at home and portable play.

“Animal Crossing,” released in March last year, didn’t sell as well this year as it did in the April-June quarter the previous year when 10 million units were snatched up.

“Animal Crossing” sales totaled 1.26 million in April-June, for cumulative sales of 33.9 million.