GCEIP 500 Company profile
Nintendo
Nintendo reported 23.68 million Switch 2 consoles sold worldwide by June 30, 2026. Its new system arrived with a familiar question for the company: can its games bring players back for another hardware generation?
The company
What it does
Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese home-entertainment company that develops and sells video game hardware, software and related services. It combines its own consoles with games built around characters and franchises such as Mario, Zelda and Kirby. The company says its consolidated workforce was 8,666 at the end of March 2026.
Across markets
Nintendo’s official sales data shows 23.68 million Switch 2 hardware units and 58.17 million software units sold worldwide by June 30, 2026. The earlier Switch reached 156.59 million hardware units over its lifetime. Those figures give Nintendo a large global audience and make each console launch a major commercial event. The cycle also depends on continued hardware production and game releases; unit sales alone do not show how long devices remain in use or their full material and energy footprint.
The company’s footprint and context are linked to the public sources below.
GCEIP view
What the record tells us
TIME included Nintendo in its 2021 and 2025 TIME100 Companies lists. The first entry described the company’s approach to building communities through games; the 2025 profile focused on the Switch 2 launch and Nintendo’s exclusive games. These are editorial placements, not judged awards. WCRC ranked the Nintendo brand #14 in its 2026 World’s Most Powerful 100 Brands, with a score of 80.50; that result is linked for context but falls outside the 2001–2025 counting period. Nintendo is one of the few companies whose recognition story can be read alongside a product cycle: a new console renews interest in long-running game franchises, while the strength of the business still depends on what players choose to buy next.
Published recognition
Selected results
See published awards and company-list results 2 sources
- TIME100 Most Influential Companies · 2025View source
TIME100 Companies selection
Named by TIME editors among 105 businesses for company-specific influence, impact, innovation, ambition or success; analysis of the specific business case pending
- TIME100 Most Influential Companies · 2021View source
Innovators
Video games; “Creating communities”
Sources for this profile
- Nintendo hardware and software sales data, as of June 30, 2026
- Nintendo Co., Ltd. company profile and headquarters
- TIME: Nintendo in the 2021 TIME100 Companies list
- TIME: Nintendo in the 2025 TIME100 Companies list
- TIME: 2025 TIME100 Companies selection method
- WCRC: Nintendo at #14 in the 2026 global brand ranking (outside this edition’s period)