The Nintendo Switch has managed to sell more units in six years than the iconic Nintendo Wii sold in its entire lifetime, at least as far as sales in the US go.
That’s according to a new report from GamesIndustry.biz and sales data from Circana (formerly known as NPD). Amidst a larger published article that looks at video game spending in the US over the last 12 months, GI says of Nintendo’s ongoing momentum, “Switch has also continued to perform strongly in 2023, helped by the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. In fact, the US lifetime sales of Switch hardware finally surpassed those of Wii in the US market during July 2023. Switch lifetime sales now trail Xbox 360 by less than one million units, and PlayStation 2 by fewer than five million.”
The article from GI doesn’t give any actual figures, but Nintendo’s recent financial reporting indicates that 49 million units of the Nintendo Switch were sold in The Americas up until March 31st this year, a number that’s no doubt grown quite since with the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in May – which managed to rack up a whopping 18 million copies sold in just its first seven weeks on shelves.
The rest of the report shows video game sales in general (again in the US) haven’t really shifted all that much year-on-year, with sales of PS5 consoles trending 5% over the PS4 when comparing lifetimes, and Xbox Series X|S around 10% behind on Xbox One. Subscriptions like Game Pass and PlayStation Plus haven’t seen any real growth in the US year-on-year but the overall spending on video games grew around 3% to $58.3 billion USD.
Nintendo will naturally be looking to its next-generation console, heavily rumoured to be a successor to the “hybrid portable” form factor of the current Switch, to continue its incredible run.
