Super Mario Odyssey caps off a banner year for Nintendo

It wasn't very long ago that Nintendo lagged far behind its competitors in the video games horse race. But the Japanese company has always proven resilient, and 2017 has so far been one of its best years ever.

The company said Mondaythat its net profit jumped 35 per cent in April-September from a year earlier, helped by popularity of itsSwitch hybrid game machine and new releases.

It logged a 51.5 billion yen ($584 million) net profit in the fiscal first half-year, compared with a 38.3 billion net profit in the same period a year earlier.

Nintendo has shipped 7.63 million Switch devices since its launch in March.According to Bloomberg, the company ison track to sell more than 16 million units in the device's first 13 months. That's more Switch consolesin one year than its predecessor, the ill-fated Wii U, has sold since it launched in 2012.

The Switch's first premiere game was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which critics and fans hailed as a reinvention for the series. It's been a solid seller throughout the year, moving 4.7 million copies. According to the NPD Group, Breath of the Wild was the second-best-selling game year-to-date ending this August, behind only Ubisoft's Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

It was the first in a volley of well-received Nintendo-published games for the Switch, including MarioKart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon2 and ARMS.

The list of releases was "capped off," so to speak, with Super Mario Odyssey last Friday, starring the company's most recognizable mascot (and former plumber) accompanied now by Cappy, a sentient being masquerading as his trademark red hat. The game has received nearly universal praise from critics, earning an average rating of 97 per cent on theaggregation site Metacritic.

"Super Mario Odyssey is an absolute delight that will remind you why you started playing games in the first place," The National Post's Chad Sapiehawrote, who gave it a nineout of 10.

The reception was equally positive among consumers, as Nintendo announced they've soldtwo million copies of the game in its first three days on the market.

Nintendo's also performed well in the mobile sector, a relatively new venture for the company which has historically only released games on its own hardware. After the rocky launch of Super Mario Run, Nintendofound success with Fire Emblem Heroes, which regularly tops the highest-grossing apps lists on iOS and Google Play.

Its next smartphone game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, is a miniaturized version of the popular city-simulation series, due for release in North America next month.

Unit shortages

If anything, Nintendo's biggest challenges over the past year have come as a result of its own success.

The better-than-expected sales for the Switch had the company scrambling to manufacture more units to keep up with the demand. Hopeful consumers lined up outside of stores in hopes of finding a console, most notably in Japan, where unit shortages lasted into the summer.

Reports even emerged that Nintendo was competing with Apple over key components for the Switch, whichwere instead earmarked for the new iPhone 8.

Concern over shortages continued with the September launch of the Super NES(SNES) Classic, a retro console packed with classic games from the 1990s. Pre-orders for the system sold out within minutes online, echoing the shortage of its predecessor from last year, the NES Classic.

Nintendo announced that it soldtwo millionSNES Classics since Sept. 30 more thanthree times as many NES Classics as it was able to ship in the same amount of time last year, and close to the total 2.4 million NES Classics it sold before discontinuing it in the spring.

Nintendoplans to release more NES Classics in 2018, and has committed to producing the SNES Classic "regularly," an about-face fromits initial design as a limited-edition product.

"In the entertainment business, predicting demand for new games and new platforms is part science and part art. It is very much a challenge," Nintendo of Canada's general manager Pierre-Paul Trepanier told CBC News.

"There has been great effort put into putting more supply into the marketplace and certainly our intent is to make sure we put smiles on people's faces, not frustration."

The last big test for Nintendo this year will be maintaining supply for what will likely be a busy holiday season. Switch shortages in Canada, at least, seem to have eased as the console appears in stock at many retailers. But SNES Classics are still relatively hard to find, appearing on second-hand auction sites like ebay for twice the suggested retail price of $99.99.

The bigger question will be whether Nintendo can maintain this momentum into 2018. Having already released major instalments in the Zelda and Mario series, it plans to release new games in the Kirby and Yoshi franchises next year, as well as a major Pokemon title for the Switch.