New Delhi, Aug 3 (IANS): Japanese gaming giant Nintendo suffered nearly 23 per cent decline in console sales to 3.43 million in the second quarter (Q2), the company said on Wednesday.

The sales for the entire Nintendo Switch family of systems declined due to semiconductor shortage affecting production.

Sales of the standard Nintendo Switch were down 60 per cent to 1.32 million units in the quarter, while sales of the Switch Lite were down nearly 50 per cent to 0.59 million.

Overall, the software sales did not keep pace with the strong showing of the first quarter of last fiscal year and totalled 41.41 million units, down by 8.6 per cent year-on-year, the company announced.

The Switch OLED, which went on sale last October, saw 1.52 million units being sold.

The company still expects to sell 21 million consoles till March 2023.

"Production was impacted by factors such as the global shortage of semiconductor components, resulting in a decrease in hardware shipments and subsequent decline in overall sales," Nintendo said a statement.

In terms of games, Nintendo Switch Sports was its best seller with 4.84 million units, followed by Mario Strikers: Battle League and Kirby and the Forgotten Land with 1.91 and 1.88 million, respectively.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a game that was released over five years ago in April 2017, sold 1.48 million units in the quarter.

Nintendo has now sold over 111 million Switch consoles in total, and said the "demand remains stable" globally despite the age of the machine.

More than 100 million users played Nintendo Switch in the last 12-month period.

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