Nintendo Switch Total Sales Have Officially Surpassed Wii, PlayStation
Nintendo has revealed its financial results for Q3 of its 2022 fiscal year, and with those results, the company has announced new sales figures for the Switch. Not only has the Switch joined the 100 million club – selling more than 100 million units worldwide since its introduction – but it has now surpassed the Wii in terms of total unit sales.
The Wii was a huge success for Nintendo, so the fact that the Switch has now surpassed it certainly speaks to the popularity of the platform. According to Nintendo's updated sales data, the Switch has now sold a total of 103.54 million units worldwide, only slightly edging out the Wii, which sits at 101.63 million lifetime sales.
In Nintendo's full financial report, we see that the standard Switch comprises 81.68 million of those sales, while the Switch Lite has pulled in a respectable 17.87 million. Even though the Switch OLED launched in October, it managed to sell 3.99 million units before the end of the quarter in December.
In hitting 103.54 million units sold, the Switch has also surpassed the original PlayStation (102.49 million units sold) to become the fifth best-selling console of all time. The four systems in front of it are the PlayStation 4 (116.9 million), the Game Boy/Game Boy Color (118.69 million), Nintendo DS (154.02 million), and the PlayStation 2 (155 million), according to Wikipedia's list of the best-selling game consoles.
The PlayStation 4 is still in production, so while it won't end its run at 116.9 million, we probably shouldn't expect too many more sales for the platform now that the PlayStation 5 is here. It seems likely that the Switch will eventually surpass both the PlayStation 4 and the Game Boy to become the third best-selling console of all time.
Whether or not it will catch up with the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation 2 is another question entirely. The Switch has proven to be a very popular platform, but the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2 were phenomenons in terms of worldwide sales. There is always a chance that the Switch will catch up with those platforms, but it still has a long way to go before it does.
In other news, while Nintendo did say there was a drop in software sales year-over-year, there were still some games that have performed particularly well. For example, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have sold a combined total of 13.97 million units, so Pokemon is still a force to be reckoned with. On the other hand, Mario Party Superstars has managed to pull in 5.43 million sales so far since launching on October 29th.
During the first nine months of FY2022, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has racked up another 7.96 million sales for a new lifetime total of 43.35 million. Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold an additional 4.99 million units for a grand total of 37.82 million units sold so far, so while it initially looked like Animal Crossing: New Horizons would catch up with and even surpass Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to become Switch's best-selling title, the gap has widened over the past year.
So, it seems Switch has been able to capitalize on the lack of PS5 and Xbox Series X availability. We'll see where it ends up to close out Nintendo's fiscal year in just a few months, so stay tuned for more.