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The Nintendo Switch is entering its eighth year, the longest period that any Nintendo console has gone without a successor. But even as gamers look forward to news of the Nintendo Switch 2, which is expected to be released in September, the company remains confident about the future of the hybrid console. Nintendo plans to sell more than 12 million new Nintendo Switches this year, and everyone is asking the same question: How will it be achieved?

Nintendo's latest earnings report (April-June) was terrible, even worse than expected. Without blockbuster first-party games like The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom Tears or massive pop culture hits like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Japanese console maker's profits fell by more than 70%.

Here are some other interesting takeaways from Nintendo's latest earnings report:

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Luigi's Mansion 2 remakes each sold over 1 million copies

The ratio of digital sales to physical sales has jumped from 47.3% in the same period last year to 58.9% this year.

The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears sold more games last year than all first-party games combined this year

But only an additional 1.3 million copies were sold in the past nine months.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild actually sold more games than Kingdom of Tears last quarter

NS has 128 million unique players

Nintendo sold 60,000 games last quarter despite discontinuation of 3DS

However, the big news is that Nintendo still plans to sell 13.5 million Switch consoles this fiscal year. With 2.1 million sold last quarter, that means it needs to sell another 11.4 million consoles this summer through Christmas and beyond. If it achieves that goal, it will be close to the lifetime sales of the best-selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2, which sold 155 million units as of 2012. Perhaps that's why former Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan announced that the final sales of the PS2 would be 160 million units.

It's still possible that the Nintendo Switch could reach that number during the life cycle of successor models such as the Nintendo Switch 2, but analysts are skeptical given the lack of officially announced big hits and the fact that the total Nintendo Switch sales were just 15 million units the year The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom Tears and Super Mario Bros.: Marvel were released. "I really wonder how Nintendo can achieve their hardware sales goals," said Serkan Toto, an analyst in Tokyo. "I doubt if Nintendo has enough fuel left, especially how they plan to reach their goals without lowering the price of their hardware."

Price cuts are indeed one way Nintendo can stimulate new sales. While the company released a cheaper NS Lite for $200, the better seller is still the $350 NS OLED. This hardware has used the same specs for years, and a $50 price cut would be a big deal. It's also possible that Nintendo has one or two big surprises in store for the fall and winter. We also shouldn't underestimate the power of Super Mario Party: All-Time Celebration--Super Mario Party is the seventh-best-selling game on the NS--and The Legend of Zelda: Resurrection of the Wisdom has the potential to be a system mover despite its more retro look.