The Nintendo Switch keeps passing massive milestones. Earlier today, Nintendo announced that, as of the end of last year, their hybrid console has sold 32.27 million units in less than two years since its release. This now puts the console less than million units away from the Nintendo 64’s 32.93 million lifetime sales.
At the end of October, the console was nearing 23 million units sold. Thanks to a strong holiday push, it was able to sell over nine million units over the course of the end of the year. The Switch also became the best selling console in the U.S. last year.
On the software side of things, total software sales have surpassed 161 million units on the console. Nintendo now has five first party titles that have hit ten million units sold. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe overtook the top spot for best selling Nintendo Switch game selling 15.02 million copies in its lifetime. Previous number one, Super Mario Odyssey, now sits at second with 13.76 million units sold. Surprisingly at third, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold an astonishing 12.08 million units within its first month on sale. At fourth, the acclaimed launch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has hit 11.68 million units sold. Finally, the combined sales of the Pokemon: Let’s Go titles have hit the ten million mark.
With a wildly successful 2018, it will be interesting to see how successful this year will be for the company. The Big N has plenty of new titles coming down the pipeline including Animal Crossing, Luigi’s Mansion 3, and a core RPG Pokemon game. However, one of the company’s most anticipated games, Metroid Prime 4, has restarted development and won’t be coming out anytime soon.
The Nintendo Switch is doing very well compared to the other hardware manufactures as well, with the hybrid console being the fastest selling console of the generation. VGChartz has the Xbox One sitting at around 42 million units sold lifetime as of November 2018. Thus, the Nintendo Switch is quickly catching up to Microsoft’s console. On the other hand, the PlayStation 4 recently surpassed 91 million units sold, and is on its way to becoming one of the best selling consoles of all time. It will be interesting to see if the Nintendo Switch will be able to come close to that number if given the same amount of time.
