Nintendo’s hybrid console has done well for the company and nearly five years later with two variants available, the Switch has seen consistent sales allowing it to hit a new milestone: 89 million units sold. This doesn’t take into account the new OLED model which is set to launch this October but as of this past June, that’s far more consoles than the Wii U ever sold.
Releasing a new financial report this morning:
“So far, we have been talking about sell-in or unit sales by the Nintendo group to our business partners. Now let’s turn the discussion to sell-through, which is the number of units purchased by consumers. Sales continued to grow for the overall Nintendo Switch family of systems, with global cumulative sell-through exceeding 85 million units as of the end of June 2021. Looking at sell-through in the first quarter, Nintendo Switch Lite sellthrough declined while Nintendo Switch sell-through rose compared to the same quarter of last fiscal year”
The company sold an additional 4.45 million units (3.31 original Switch model 1.14 million for the Lite model) in the first quarter of this year, closing the gap to the lifetime sales of the Wii, currently at 101.63 million units. Nintendo reported a slowdown, however, with both the Switch and Switch Lite seeing a 21.7% shipment decrease year-over-year.
Though it certainly feels like the Switch is likely to surpass the Wii at some point, it has now passed lifetime PS3 shipments (87.4 million), having overtaken lifetime Xbox 360 shipments (84 million) earlier this year.
During the first quarter, New Pokémon Snap sold 2.07 million copies, Miitopia sold 1.04 million units, and Mario Golf: Super Rush sold 1.34 million copies. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (1.69 million) continues to be a seller for Nintendo despite being a port from the Wii U.
Much of this had to do with the consistent sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons stemming from last year with the game continuing to sell well with 10.64 million copies sold this quarter.
