Nintendo announced today that sales of the Nintendo Switch have now crossed the 100 million milestone, with 103.54 million units sold since the launch of the handheld console back in 2017. Despite the ongoing chip shortages, the Japanese company sold 18.95 million Switch consoles in the nine months leading to December 2021, which is inferior to the 24.1 million Switch units sold a year earlier during the same period.
Despite the Switch’s aging hardware, the console has now sold more units than the Wii during its entire lifetime, and it’s well on its way to beating the Nintendo DS and the Game Boy as the company’s most popular console ever. “Switch is just in the middle of its lifecycle and the momentum going into this year is good,” said Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa after the company released its latest earnings report (via Bloomberg). “The Switch is ready to break a pattern of our past consoles that saw momentum weakening in their sixth year on the market and grow further.”
After Microsoft announced the acquisition of Activision/Blizzard for $68.7 billion, which was followed by Sony getting its hands on Bungie for $3.6 billion, the Nintendo exec also discussed yesterday the company’s stance on acquisitions. “Our brand was built upon products crafted with dedication by our employees, and having a large number of people who don’t possess Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company,” Furukawa said.
Fortunately for Nintendo, the Japanese company doesn’t have an exclusive games problem, thanks to killer IPs and internal studios capable of releasing hits after hits. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the top-selling Nintendo Switch game with 43.35 million units sold, followed by Animals Crossings: New Horizon, which sold 37.62 million units in less than 2 years.
If companies like Microsoft or Google believe that game subscription services are the future, Nintendo can safely continue to ignore this trend. Yesterday, the Japanese company revealed that software sales on the Nintendo Switch have now crossed 766.41 million units, which is getting closer to the company’s previous 948.76 million record for Nintendo DS games.
