Nintendo Switch

Nintendo's fiscal year earnings release is finally in our hands, with updated sales figures for its games, consoles, and more. The report reveals that the Nintendo Switch family of systems sold 21.03 million units last year, putting the console's worldwide lifetime total at 55.77 million.

Those 21.03 million sales cover 1st April 2019 - 31st March 2020, meaning that Switch hardware sales were up by an impressive 24.0% year-on-year. The total was, of course, boosted this year by the launch of the Switch Lite which first hit the market in September (Switch Lite accounts for 6.19 million of the family's 55.77 million sales).

Software sales totalled 168.72 million units this year (which is an even more impressive 42.3% increase on a year-on-year basis). Animal Crossing: New Horizons saw particularly strong early success, although all of the Switch's top ten best-selling games saw a jump in sales.

In the report, Nintendo notes that while the COVID-19 outbreak has caused delays in the production and shipment of the console and accessories, it "only had limited impact on business results for this fiscal year".

So, how is the Switch performing compared to Nintendo's past consoles? Here's a look at every home system's total lifetime sales (data is correct as of 31st March 2020).

Console Hardware Sales (Million) Software Sales (Million)
Wii 101.63 921.69
NES 61.91 500.01
Nintendo Switch 55.77 356.24
SNES 49.10 379.06
Nintendo 64 32.93 224.97
GameCube 21.74 208.57
Wii U 13.56 103.10

As you can see, the Switch is creeping up on the NES and will no doubt become the second best-selling home console Nintendo has ever produced.

Impressive stuff, huh? Do you think the Switch will ever catch the Wii? Let us know with a comment below.

[source nintendo.co.jp]