Nintendo sold 711,000 Switches last month

Nintendo sold 711,000 Switches in the U.S. in October, nearly half of them the new OLED model, according to a new report in The Verge.

Why it matters: Nintendo is reminding people (again) not to count it out.

• It rarely releases specific sales figures but did so today.
• It even announced that its big October release, “Metroid Dread,” sold 854,000 copies in the U.S., the best start for a "Metroid" game in the series' 25-year history.
• Nintendo's Switch sales put it back ahead of the PS5 in terms of consoles sold. In September, the PS5 had broken the Switch’s 33-month winning streak, according to the NPD Group.

The big picture: For all its success, Nintendo is perennially dismissed as an also-ran and has seen its stock prices do nothing but drop for most of 2021.

• That price is hovering at $55, down from $80 at the start of the year and nearly back to where it was pre-pandemic.
• This is despite chart-topping hardware sales and a flow of well-received, strong-selling games — none of it good enough, it seems, for investors who were excited by 2020’s “Animal Crossing” Switch boom.
• Nintendo did recently lower its annual forecast for Switch shipments by 1.5 million units, citing supply chain issues.
• And in a rare public sign of vulnerability, Nintendo recently confirmed the closing of two of its regional offices in North America, saying the move was focused on consolidation.

What’s next: Nintendo has a series of major “Pokémon” releases coming in November and January and some other big games expected beyond that.