Nintendo Switch Getting Really Close To Beating Wii Sales Record
The Nintendo Switch is on track to outsell the Nintendo Wii, which would make it the third best-selling Nintendo system and the company's top home console of all time. The Switch has enjoyed widespread success since it launched in 2017, with its sales being boosted in 2020 thanks to the popularity of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The Wii and Switch have a lot in common. They both helped bring Nintendo bounce back from some darker periods, as the Wii was a big hit with "casual" gamers after the GameCube was trounced in sales by the PlayStation 2. Similarly, the Switch revived interest in the Nintendo brand after the poor sales of the Wii U, which was significantly beaten at the marketplace by the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The two consoles also appealed to mainstream audiences, with Wii's motion controls giving people a novel way to play and Switch's hybrid handheld/home console nature making it easy to play games anywhere.
Now, Nintendo has released its latest financial earnings report for 2021, which includes the sales data for the Switch and its games. According to Nintendo, the Switch has sold 89.04 million units to date. This has put it within close range of the Nintendo Wii, which sold 101.63 million units throughout its lifespan. If the Switch still has multiple years left in its own lifespan via hardware revisions, then it very likely has what it takes to become the best-selling Nintendo home console yet.
The Nintendo Switch saw a spike in sales (and shortages) during the first year of the pandemic, but the system will possibly lose some of that momentum going into the 2021 holiday season now that COVID lockdowns have been lifted. Switch OLED Model pre-orders quickly sold out at retailers when they opened - however, it's unclear if that was the result of scalpers buying up all of the stock straight away, as has been the case with the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
The Switch is facing stiff competition from the PS5, but the Nintendo system has a number of high-profile exclusives on the way. Metroid Dread, Metroid Prime 4, the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and several new Pokémon games are all coming in the future, all of which could drive Switch sales even further. The console needs to sell around 12 million more units to beat out the Wii, but that's an easily obtainable goal over the next few years at the Switch's current rate. It's feasible that it could even topple the Game Boy line's impressive figure of 118.69 million units sold, but it's unlikely that the Switch will outsell the Nintendo DS, which would require 70 million more sales to make it the best-selling Nintendo console of all time.
Source: Nintendo