Switch Online reaches 15 million paid accounts as Nintendo worries about 'those who do not renew their memberships'

'We will continue to enhance the appeal of the service'

In the most recent corporate management policy briefing for the fiscal year ending in March 2020, we get a tiny little update from Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa on the state of the Switch Online service. Surprisingly, it's a little melancholy.

Furukawa confirms that Nintendo has coaxed 15 million people into paid memberships for Switch Online, but as usual, there's more work to do. As he notes himself: "while new members continue to join, there are also those who do not renew their memberships. We will continue to enhance the appeal of the service to bring more features and more fun to Nintendo Switch." The understatement (so far) of 2020.

So let's break it down and do some basic math (God help me). The current lifetime sales number for the Switch is 52.48 million, and the reported paid memberships are 15 million. That's roughly 28% of all Switch users, not accounting for family plan shenanigans (but accounting for free trials, as once again, Nintendo specifies "paid" memberships in its briefing).

That's respectable, and up from the 9.8 million figure we got midway through last year, but Nintendo is right: it needs to more aggressively make Switch Online more appealing if it wants to keep growing.

Corporate Management Policy Briefing [Nintendo]