The Nintendo Switch has reached a new milestone.
As shared on Bluesky by OatmealDome, Nintendo has revealed in their latest financial report that their venerable console has sold 152.12 million units. The company has also sold 1.39 billion Switch games.
When it comes to individual titles, they have these numbers to share for their big releases over the last quarter:
- Super Mario Party Jamboree: 7.48 mil
- Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door: 2.10 mil
- Mario & Luigi Brothership: 1.97 mil
- Donkey Kong Country Returns HD: 1.27 mil
- Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD: 1.88 mil
Unfortunately, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is conspicuous in its absence in this report. OatmealDome explains the game likely didn’t reach 1 million units sold, but it may come up in the report for the next quarter if it does then.
We won’t review all the facts and figures here, but while the Switch 2 still hasn’t released yet, the company is still seeing slowdown in sales and profit for Switch consoles and games. Nintendo’s clearly reaching its market capitalization peak not because of the Switch, but because of the anticipation for the Switch 2.
But now, we should return to the race that you probably had in mind. In the last quarterly report last February, Nintendo stated that the Switch reached 150.8 million units in sales. If it only took a quarter to bring that up to 152 million, it could take as soon as the next quarter to get that to 154 million. The Nintendo DS stands as the second best selling console of all time at 154 million, and above it is the PlayStation 2 at what Sony has recently confirmed is a solid 160 million units sold.
There was some doubts growing over whether the Switch would get the chance to reach and surpass the PlayStation 2’s record. And the issue there wasn’t with gamers, but with Nintendo. It was Nintendo who would pull the rug up from selling the console in favor of the Switch 2. In previous generations, Nintendo takes about two years after their latest system is in the market before they pull its predecessor.
This generation already seems different, because the Switch 2 clearly has the power to run eight generation and ninth generation console games. Because of the steep launch price of the Switch 2, that trend of when Nintendo retires their consoles may change too. To quote Doug Bowser in an interview last month:
We recognize there are some people that may not be able to afford [the Switch 2’s] price point. That’s why we wanted to make the other Switch platforms available, so [people] still have an opportunity to come into our gaming universe, be a part of these characters in these worlds, and see value, if you will, in whatever rung of the platform they come in.
Some press and gamers have interpreted this to be a similar quote as Don Mattrick’s infamous spit take about the Xbox One and Xbox 360 from what seems like a lifetime ago. But neither the Xbox 360 nor Xbox One were anywhere close in the running for the best-selling console of all time.
The truth is, there’s a lot of incentive for Nintendo to keep the Switch a healthy business, at least in the interim. There may even be a point where they’ll make more money on the Switch than the Switch 2, dependent on how the business environment shifts in the coming months and years. If Bowser was being truthful in his statement, there may be a healthy number of cross generation games for the Switch and Switch 2 in the near future.
In fact, Nintendo forecasted that they will sell 4.5 million Switch units in the next financial year to their investors. While Nintendo’s primary focus here is their own business, if they meet that goal, they will be dangerously close to the PlayStation 2’s record, and making the Switch the greatest-selling console of all time.
And so, if there are doubts that Nintendo really cares about these records at all, they definitely care about keeping the Switch viable and profitable. And under that lens, they may get to that goal in the next twelve months.
