TOKYO — Nintendo shares surged Friday, closing 4.8% higher at 8,011 yen after climbing as high as 8,043 yen earlier in the session, following a first-quarter earnings report that showed profit soaring even as hardware sales for the company's flagship Switch 2 console declined from the same period a year earlier.

The gain comfortably outpaced the broader Tokyo market, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 index falling 0.8% on the same day, underscoring how strongly investors reacted to Nintendo's results, which were released after markets closed Thursday.

Profit Beats Expectations

Nintendo reported net profit attributable to the company of 145.4 billion yen for the quarter ended June 30, up sharply from 80.9 billion yen in the same period a year earlier and comfortably ahead of the 119.8 billion yen analysts had expected, according to consensus estimates compiled by S&P Global Visible Alpha. Operating profit for the quarter climbed to 142.5 billion yen, an increase of roughly 150% from the prior-year period, while ordinary profit rose 115.1% to 206.1 billion yen.

The scale of the profit surge stood in contrast to Nintendo's hardware performance during the quarter, illustrating how strongly software sales and other revenue streams contributed to the company's bottom line even as console shipments themselves slowed.

Switch 2 Hardware Sales Slow From a Year Ago

Nintendo sold 3.82 million Switch 2 units during the April-to-June quarter, down 34.4% from the same period a year earlier, when the console had just launched in June 2025 and was riding an initial wave of pent-up........

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