Nintendo Switch outsells Wii, Hybrid Nintendo’s best-selling home console.
Shuntaro Furukawa, Nintendo president, says that the Switch “is in the middle of its lifespan” every quarter. This is why it makes headlines almost every quarter. The Switch continues to sell like crazy and has broken records. It’s easy to understand why Furukawa insists on the exact quote. Nintendo’s CEO and no one else at the company want to slow down that momentum.
It seems like it is working. The Switch has sold more units than the 2006 Wii, the previous record-holder for Nintendo’s best-selling console. 103.54 M units have surpassed the Switch’s 101.63million install base. The Wii was viewed as an insurgency at the time. It opened up the gaming market to a new mass audience and led to its meteoric rise. The Switch is not only faster than competitors such as Microsoft and Sony, but it has also been the fastest-selling console home in history.
Although the actual Switch install base is still behind the PlayStation 4 (116.9 Million), the Nintendo DS (154.02 Million), and the PlayStation 2 (155.5 million), it is within striking distance of the first. It will likely never catch up to the latter two.
However, Nintendo lowered their Switch’s sixth-year projections due to less demand and chip shortages. Here are some other interesting facts about their quarterly results.
- Nintendo is not interested in entering the acquisitions war, unlike Microsoft or Sony. Furukawa stated to investors that they don’t believe it would be beneficial to acquire Next Level Games as their partner studio.
- Mario Kart 8 deluxe sold almost five million copies during the quarter that ended in March, bringing its total sales to 43.35 million. This is an excellent example of how Nintendo’s history has been doing. The Pokemon isn’t the only game that has sold more, but the Super Mario Bros. in every port and permutation. Mariokart 8 could theoretically beat that record by year’s end.
- The Super Smash Bros. series has sold 69 million units. This includes six games (five if Smash Bros. and ). This would be the most excellent selling fighting game series ever, but it is not. Before the Smash Bros. franchise, it was still behind Mortal Kombat (73 million) and had thirteen more games. Smash Bros. could theoretically catch up in sales, but a new Mortal Kombat game would increase the gap and make it more unlikely.
- Pokemon Sword & Shield has been officially named the second-best-selling Pokemon title in the main series. The newest Switch titles are barely ahead of Gold & Silver, with 23.9 million sales. This is just behind Johto’s 23.7million. Although it’s not Red/Green/Blue’s 31.38million, it’s still impressive.
- Another Pokemon update: Last year’s Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl sold 13.97m units from November through January. It is likely to outsell Pokémon: Let’s Get (14.33 million) by the end of summer.
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe sold 12.72M units, approximately 2.18 times the lifetime total of the original Wii U release.
- Mario Party Superstars is a nostalgia-laden minigame released on Switch in late 2013. It has sold 5.43 million units, compared to Super Mario Party’s 17.39 million. This is a considerable gap. The newest Mario Party game, Superstars, is still only a few months old. It is currently the third-best-selling Mario Party game, behind Super and Mario Party.
- Metroid dread is expected to be the most popular game in the 2D Metroid Series with 2.74 million. It is expected to be the most popular Metroid title, if not already, by the time this article is written. Nintendo has not reported the 3DS title Samus returns sales, but it is estimated to sell around 500,000. If this number is correct, Metroid Fear has, in its first three months of release, sold approximately five times as many copies as its immediate predecessor.
- Skyward Sword HD is the only “bad” piece of news for Nintendo software. The Wii original’s Wii remaster (3.3 million) has outsold it, but sales have lagged. Last quarter saw a mere 250,000 sales. Breath Of The Wild sold 1.67 million units last quarter for a total lifetime of 25.8 million.
