It’s no secret that Nintendo’s hybrid console, the Nintendo Switch, is selling extremely well, but the company’s latest announcement suggests that the system has reached another major sales milestone.
Revealed on the Investor Relations (IR) page of Nintendo’s Japanese siteit appears that the Nintendo Switch has now sold 132.46 million units since its release in March 2017. This total figure includes the base model Nintendo Switch, the upgraded Nintendo Switch OLED and the cheaper Nintendo Switch Lite.
Still, that’s an awful lot of consoles, especially when you consider that the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, which was a fairly popular line of handhelds in its own right, only sold 75.94 million units in its entire lifespan.
In fact, this data shows that the Nintendo Switch has now surpassed the incredibly popular Nintendo Wii, which racked up 101.63 million units sold, and is closing in on the Nintendo DS, which currently sits in first place with a whopping 154.02 million units sold copies.
This announcement also included some interesting tidbits about software sales. Not only is the Nintendo Switch currently by far the company’s largest platform in terms of pure software sales, with “1,133.23 million units sold to date”, but also some recent exclusives such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have performed very well.
With sales of 19.50 million, it has already become one of the system’s most popular games after just a few months on the market.
These figures are accurate as of September 30, meaning the impact of other high-profile hits like the is excellent Super Mario Bros. Miracle remains to be seen – although we expect this to lead to a significant increase in both software and hardware sales for at least a few months.
This data is also from before the Black Friday game deals hit the market. Since we’re already seeing many attractive bundle offers up for grabs during the sale period, it’s especially likely that November will be a particularly strong month for hardware sales.
If you buy Nintendo hardware this Black Friday, don’t miss out! See our guide to the best Black Friday Nintendo Switch deals or the best Black Friday Switch OLED deals.