Nintendo sold over 906,000 Switch units in the United States alone last month, making it, as they bragged in a press release tonight, the fastest-selling video game system in the company’s long history. Combine that with half a million in Japan and you’ve already got nearly 1.5 million of these things, not counting Europe (where we don’t have up-to-date numbers).
For comparison, the Wii U sold 890,000 units in the United States during its first six weeks on the market. That was during the holiday season, of course — the Wii U came out in November of 2012 — which makes the Switch’s numbers look even more impressive.
Nintendo added that they have sold 1.3 million copies of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the U.S. — 925,000 on Nintendo Switch and 460,000 on Wii U — and you may notice that they have sold more copies of the Switch game than Switches themselves for an attach rate of over 100%, which is certainly one hell of a number.
“While Nintendo Switch sales are off to a record-breaking start, shipments have not yet been able to keep up with such high demand,” the company said in a press release. “Nintendo is working to make sure everyone who wants a system is able to buy one, and more systems are continually being shipped.”
Based on the Switch’s success, we can only assume that Nintendo will soon discontinue it.
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22 responses to “Nintendo Sells Nearly A Million Switches In The United States”
What I want to know is who the fudge is actually buying these. All of my close mates are gamers and none of them even remotely considered it. The Wii was sort of alright. With the Wii-U they aggressively committed to a campaign of “never release a single game for this platform that anyone will ever care about for any reason” and they just keep doubling down on the whole ‘let’s base it on some kind of gimmick instead of just making a good platform!’ generation after generation after generation.
I get that nintendo is doing okay, I’m not questioning that. I just can’t for the life of me figure out how the flippity flop why or how.
Kids market
Myself and almost every person i know that is a gamer has bought one, i went to a mates 30th last month and there was 7 switches in the house at one point, along with 6 or 7 friends i know who have never owned a Nintendo console.
i dont understand the hate/confusion from people the console is amazing, it fits a perfect void for people like myself, predominant PC gamer from way back, i rarely couch game due to having a beast of a PC, but i love gaming on the go when traveling/training and being able to walk in my door after playing on the train and dock to sit with the missus and get some zelda or bomberman smashed out is great.
I have one and love it. Two mates who don’t game besides PC and haven’t had a console for a couple of generations are also jumping in. One plans to get one cheaper in the states in a month during a trip and the other has his on layby (which he does with everything he buys for some reason).
I’m nearly 42 and have been jonesing for this thing a while now. Seriously though…..you really have no idea how cool it is until you own one. The screen to handheld mode instantaneous nature of it is incredible, Zelda alone is proof positive that it’s more than powerful enough to be a great console and the portablility is its biggest strength. Nothing like some Fast RMX whilst waiting in the car for the kids to finish their after school sports. Just gotta remember that I’m not playing Fast RMX on the drive home…..
The switch is one hell of a badass console…..finally
It’s basically the same audience as every other Nintendo console ie people who want to play Nintendo games. But the nature of the console means it appeals to both those who want a home console and also those who want a handheld. The DS series of handhelds have always sold pretty well, so there’s a decent sized market for the Switch among those people.
So.. you and your mates don’t have one = no one else in the world wants one. Got it.
Me and a bunch of my mates have each bought one…..and love them. I’m at a loss as to why anyone would think it isn’t great to be honest. Sure there aren’t a huge amount of games out at the present…..but that is par for the course for a launch line up. Plus there is BOTW, which is hands down the best game I’ve ever played.
For background, I’ve got a decent but not great gaming PC, I have a PS4Pro and a XboneS. I’ve not gone back to Horizon Zero Dawn since starting Zelda BOTW….I’m about 100 hours in. And I love HZD.
Maybe you (and your gamergroup) are just not the target market? If, for example, you are into realistic war FPSs in 4x HD, the Switch might as well not even exist for you.
That’s all well and good, there is hype for the new Zelda game. Once that dies down though what is there? After the Nintendo Direct it doesn’t sound like there are many big hitting titles coming out until late June so what’s going to happen to the momentum in the mean time? If Nintendo can’t keep this up, the launch numbers don’t really carry much weight.
E3 is around the corner, I suspect we’ll know a lot more about upcoming Switch games then.
Mario Kart says hi.
Fast RMX is no slouch either. In fact, it’s pretty fucking awesome, especially on my 120″ screen.
And to it I say “get out of here Mario Kart, you’ve been sitting on my shelf for the last three years.”
If I had a hour long journey to work on public transport, id totally buy this. But I don’t.
is there some numbers around that for the xbox and PS4? just curious as to their selling numbers in the same space of time
As said by a friend: “The Wii U in the Autumn of 2015 was cheap and had an amazing and unique selection of games. Nobody bought it. The Switch has almost no games that aren’t on other consoles in some form or another and it is sold out everywhere.”
There is no justice.
Pretty sure that what people are buying with the Switch is the potential, the promise. The Wii U was ok and had some awesome games, but the console’s novelty (the two-screen gameplay) was not only rather unexciting, but also was quickly demonstrated to be disregarded by both first and third party game makers.
That’s part of what I don’t understand. I mean, the PS4 and Xbone don’t have anything particularly novel or interesting about them at all and that’s fine apparently. Yet a game that doesn’t take on the novelty factor is a bad thing? A system with a unique point of difference can still be full of fantastic “standard” games, the Wii was full of great games without motion controls or whatever. And in the case of the Wii U, one of the most common comments going around when it first came out was “oh my god I did not know how great off-screen play would be/how much I needed it in my life” or similar, which was in itself a feature best taken advantage of by “normal” games. Actually it was kind of a problem for one of my friends with limited TV access, it meant he could never play Splatoon since that required the dual screen setup.
I dunno. “Why can’t they just make a normal console” followed by “why can’t they make games for it that aren’t normal” makes me scratch my head.
I dunno… that’s what we Nintendo fans expect, I think? It’s not a /necessity/ but an appreciated and expected display of creativity and lateral thinking that from time to time actually manages to push the whole industry forward. Without that what would be left? Yet another bland but utilitarian machine with nothing left to compete against its rivals than sterile technical benchmarks. Do we really need a third player like that in that game?
Well I’d just about argue that the Switch fits that more than any other console of theirs from the last decade and a half 😛
People hesitant: “I don’t have one, my friends don’t have one, we’re all gamers, and we don’t have one for reasons x; y; z.”
Fanboys (of Nintendo, and this particular product): “holy shit wtf, how do people not have this?? It’s fucking PERFECT I simply see absolutely no way anyone could have a bad thing to say about it. Sure, it has reason x and y that are bad but it’s A GREAT CONSOLE.”
..Seriously?