Wonder how Nintendo’s current gen game machines are doing? The Kyoto-based company just released life-to-date tallies for both the Switch and 3DS, as well as software totals for each.
For comparison’s sake, Nintendo included lifetime sales figures for its other game hardware. Have a look.
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20 responses to “Lifetime Sales For The Nintendo Switch And Nintendo 3DS”
Wow, obviously this is showing the Switch is going to be up there in terms of all time best selling Ninty stuff…but that DS total.
Jeeeeeez, I thought GameBoy was the handheld gaming king, I never had considered the DS is what people in 10/15 years will look back on as “the” Nintendo handheld that got them into it.
Still got a working first run DS at home somewhere. Never got rid of it, just so I could keep playing my Gameboy version of Mario Golf….
What surprises me is how low the N64 numbers are. Would have thought they were a lot higher than 33m.
The N64 lost a lot of popularity due to being cartridge based. Personally, I loved the carts. Instant on, potential for save games on the cart. Problem was price and lack of storage. Still, it didn’t stop some amazing games.
Had an N64, with 40 or 50 games. Was sitting at my dads place, and my sisters threw it out when they were clearing the place out 🙁 I was most upset.
I loved the N64 and those cartridges as well. I thought they were the peak of the whole cartridge era, being just chunky enough to feel tough, and not so big they took up ridiculous amounts of space.
Its the games on that platform that make me surprised is all. There are some all time classics and some that truly changed gaming, so to see the platform only sell 32m surprised me. I expected something more like twice that.
thats almost stab worthy.
Almost. I have a simple habit, of spending $100 a pay on me. Its my reward for not stabbing someone since the last pay, and is currently on a 740 week streak. I’m not sure I want to break that run.
They were disinherited though, so when I die they get jack shit from my property being sold. Might give one of em my toaster. Its a nice toaster.
Yeah, unfortunately the fact is as @hoi_polloi mentioned above that Ninty lost most of their third party support, including big publishers like Squaresoft with the decision to go cartridge based for the N64. They had their reasons for doing so of course but it turned out to be a very poor decision in hindsight. That and they had a huge ego back then, proudly spruking the system as the world’s first 64 bit console and that it was a pleasure and honour for a developer to work on the system. The system was of course technically more powerful than the competing PlayStation and Saturn, but they really lost a lot of their support for a variety of reasons.
While it definitely had some classics that changed gaming, (Mario 64, OoT, Goldeneye, etc) you need to look at it objectively too. Take away the first party Nintendo games and those created by Rare, and you’re left with – well, not much, honestly. That’s why I think it’s unlikely we’ll see an N64 mini, for the record, as there won’t be many games they can put on it, especially without the Rare games.
Would you believe that there was over twice the number of games released on the (commercially unsuccessful) Saturn than the N64? The N64 had around 400 games released and the Saturn had over 1000.
For two generations Sony pretty much held them up against the wall, it isn’t really a surprise. I feel like they could have kept that momentum if they didn’t drop the ball so hard with the PS3.
Wow, the WiiU really was a massive failure – and the Switch still has a long way to go to catch up to those Wii figures.
Always wondered what Famicom stood for.
Family Computer.
Famine-Riddled Communists.
Keep those Nintendo Switch units selling we’re almost there to reaching our target of 20 million units before the end of this year Nintendo and keep those software sales selling as well.
I’m counting on you Nintendo.
All if those numbers make sense to me, except one. How many GBAs were sold. That handheld was never on my radar, and has the least amount of exclusives that interest me for any Nintendo system, over 80 million people think differently, though.
The GBA was awesome, it was pretty much a handheld SNES. Sure there were issues such as a non-backlit screen which made it hard to play in certain conditions, but it was still pretty cool. Just found my old GBA-SP the other day. Pushed the power button and it popped back into life after 15 odd years of sitting dormant lol
I have basically every Nintendo system from the NES to the Wii, then they lost me unfortunately. The WiiU had no appeal, either does the Switch. I still have some awesome Ninty memories.
The Nintendo handhelds all had longer life spans than most of their home consoles because a) there is a novelty of taking games with you that never goes out of fashion, and b) they would get revamped with new styles and versions which would generate additional sales hype. The Gameboy had the classic and the Colour, the Gameboy Advance later got the SP, the DS got the Lite, the DSi, etc… and none of this is counting special or limited edition versions. So, the end result was that Nintendo squeezed a little extra market life out of an existing console with variants, hence the high numbers for their handhelds.
If Nintendo didnt stop making the Snes people would still be buying it even today. Greatest system of All Time!!!!!!
Except Nintendo would be bankrupt and publishing their titles on the Sega Dreamcast 6 because they didn’t adapt to the market! Yay!
Over 72 million 3DS sold and I can’t find a single person any with streetpass turned on these days.
Take your 3ds to PAX, people do there.