Switch Was The Best-Selling Console In The US For The First Half Of 2021

Are you worried about Nintendo being so successful? Leave a comment below.

Does this mean the switch lost its streak for best selling every month? Or is that based on units sold?

My Switch does look good sitting next to my Xbox Series X but don't let this distract you from the the fact that in 1966, Al Bundy scored four touchdowns in a single game while playing for the Polk High School Panthers in the 1966 city championship game versus Andrew Johnson High School, including the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds against his old nemesis, Bubba "Spare Tire" Dixon.

Keeps selling like hotcakes!

The switch should be in its own category as its an handheld console with a Dock to input to TV whilst playstation and xbox are pure TV Consoles.

But still it's the best handheld console that I've ever had and hopefully Nintendo stick with this formula for future consoles

Thank god the system keeps selling, that way I know I’ll have a sure shot selling mine when the Deck comes out!

Might be overtaken in December..

@Justaguest Why?

@UltimateOtaku91
What makes you say that, did you want playstation to win something? The inclination that the switch is one or the other is a bit old now, surely putting it in with the others makes more sense.

What the underpowered overpriced console is still selling, do people not read these comment sections.

@BloodNinja You'll be able to play just about every Nintendo game ever made on that thing.

And folk wonder why they battle rom sites so feverishly.

@UltimateOtaku91,

And this matters because?, surely the Switch is both a handheld and home console.

Not that any of this matters in terms of overall sales, and pretty sure if the Switch was not selling that well, no such distinction would be required.

I am pretty sure they will stick to this winning formula, but you never know with Nintendo.

@johnvboy I'm not saying it matters I'm just pointing out the switch is taking both the handheld and home console sales so it's obvious it's sales would be higher than the series and ps5 which have also struggled with stock shortages.

Also to your comment about the switch being underpowered and overpriced, I would bet any money that the more affordable switch lite is what's driving the majority of the switch's sales.

@UltimateOtaku91 It's not a handheld, it's a hybrid! (Unless you're referring to the Switch lite) I only play mine Docked for the most part.

@Damo Otoh the Series X is, iirc, sold at a loss(and thus need to recoup said loss on game sales which, with rising development costs of game themselves, is also another reason the standard price of game is threatened to eventually rise from 60USD to 70USD)

Switch consoles have always sold at a very small profit if I recall(iirc, something like only around 50$ for the base 299$USD model).

So even a higher "total dollars sales" might not mean much unless people buy the games to go along with that Series X.

man can't wait to pick up one of those new PS4 consoles!

@Clyde_Radcliffe the reason I labelled it as an handheld as it uses mobile technology, graphics and specs, plus around 40% of its sales are most likely the lite version. Whilst the Dock just transfers that image to the tv whilst also charging it there's nothing else to the Dock. Of course this is just my view so don't take it too seriously. Either way I look at it I love my switch for what it does

@johnvboy Heh, it might be played as a handheld/home console but it does ultimately remain a dedicated handheld.

Just that it's the one that finally included a TV connection accessory that's actually not a pain to use as part of the base package.

A lot was written about it as a "you can play your big games on the go" console but in practice(even in term of sales) it's always been more of a "You can play all those handheld/handheld jRPG both on the go AND your TV when you get home". Might sound the same but there's still a nuance(you can see it in stuff like even just game UI; You can compare Monster Hunter Rise and World's UIs and clearly see Rise's UI was in no small part built with the handheld, rather than TV, screen in mind).

As ultimately that's also my feeling on the thing; that handheld got more of a benefit of the simple support to be played on TV(after returning home from a commute/etc) than larger games got from the ability to be played on the go.

@UltimateOtaku91 as well as Switch Dockable vs Lite breakdown, it'd be good to see a breakdown of the Xbox and Playstation versions. I'd heard the Xbox series S isn't hit by shortages, and breaks even as well

Glad to see this, they deserve to be sucessfull. 😊 Hopefully they will expand the library with n64/gamecube games soon 😊 Guess they will let the Wii u have that advantage abit longer.

@UltimateOtaku91 I don't know if that many sales are the Lite, but I do see it as an handheld to.

It's just that when people were cheering about the ability to play "big games on the go" I saw it as the opposite: the ability to finally play my previously handheld-exclusive RPGs on a TV screen again when home(while still keeping the ability to play them on my commute).

Which is to say I always saw the Switch as something where it was previously handheld-only titles that had more to gain from it's hybrid nature than what "big games" got from being able to be played on the go.

Especially when looking at a lot of the games which have seemed to sell/not on Switch.

@GrailUK Truly. Even now, when I look at my collection of games, the only first party Nintendo games I own are Mario 3, Mario World, Link to the Past, and Super Metroid. I don’t even have any first party titles on the Switch anymore. Tried them for a while but they aren’t for me. Makes the Steam Deck look incredibly exciting for me!

@Justaguest Or not.
If you look at the games who succeed on Switch there's not a whole lot that are the "big games you can play on the go!" that got people initially talking about the Switch... it's ultimately always been the stuff that could already run on the Switch as a weaker handheld that sold. Sure Doom eternal's on Switch but it's still "less powerful" games which generally ended up selling more.

Plus what will sell in December will likely have more to do with "what mainstream consumers can find even at places like Walmart without having to look up stuff online" than just specs. Unless Valve go out of their way to increase their retail presence(and that's an uphill battle to convince retailes with a digital-only console that offers no reasons for consumers to come back to the retail store to buy games) they'll likely remain a niche product primarily only at however large or small the niche of Steam user who really want another platform to play their games on(when most of them already had a PC rig in the first place built to their specification) just so they can play them on the go(instead of at home, which the number of Steam users might mean plenty are still okay with).

There IS a crowd for the Steam Deck(after all, there is a crowd who don't care for Nintendo first party games but might enjoy PC games on the go), but I just don't think it's as large than people think it really will be even with the discounted price of the Steam Deck(it was more or less confirmed by Gabe Newell that unlike other handheld PCs it's being sold at a loss just to get a chance of establishing itself at all).
Even with a user base of 90-120mil Steam users... it'll be good if even as much than 10-25mil make the jump to get a Steam Deck over it's lifetime(and we still don't know what supply will even be like at release, especially with the shortage of more powerful processor/chips out there).

@TSR3 yeah the series S is in stock everywhere as I know as I have one lol and I now know why as its not that great, games still look like last gen and doesn't provide that "next gen" experience. Hence why not many are buying it

@UltimateOtaku91
And the PS4 and Xbone use APUs designed for low end notebooks, the shift towards smaller and smaller SOC/APUs rather than discrete GPU/CPU has its roots in mobile and portable devices, PS5’s 7 nm APU is the either the same size or smaller than the one in your phone and is is all due to the revolution in hardware design caused by mobile technology

Xbox Series X is probably my favorite home console I've ever owned from a consumer perspective. Love the games, game pass is super affordable, love the performance, love the Controller and the loading times are absolutely insane!! Switch is my favorite handheld & these two make a great pair. All the Bethesda games & EA play games are also really good. I'll eventually get a PS5 when it is 1) smaller and 2) more affordable with more memory. The games are just so expensive, it's a huge turn off. With Xbox SX I can play my old Star Wars Battlefront 2 disc from the OG Xbox and Left 4 Dead for my 360 & download a bunch of old school games with free enhancements at cheap prices. Anyway. Great time to be a gamer

Don't worry, SteamDeck will make the Switch irrelevant. Just you wait...

@westman98 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@UltimateOtaku91 Honestly while it IS true people do buy digital games much more than they used in the past, I think people still underestimate even just the psychological incentive for people to have even just the idea of the possibility of having physical "backup" of media when it comes to all-digital consoles. Which is why I suspect those all-digital models don't seem to have picked up all that much. Console people might indeed buy more digital games than ever, but psychologically they still aren't there yet and might still not be for a long while.

It's why I suspect the Steam Deck might also only primarily do well only with people who're already intensive Steam user because all-digital with a storage that'd need to be either the higher end models or be supplemented with the additional purchase of microSD cards is probably gonna be a detriment in the eyes of the mainstream even if it's purely based on the perspective that '"you can't even own your games on disks anymore" of it.

This said, ironically something like the Steam Deck(decently powerful hardware sold at a discounted cost) might be better situated to compete not with the Switch but Playstation/Xbox consoles due to the fact that Sony and Microsoft selling powerful artificially discounted hardware was one of the thing that was dealing more of a blow to PC gaming(where people had to pay the "real" price for hardware upgrades even before chip scarcity and scalpers inflated the price of GPUs and other components).
So as I've begun to mull it, I think there is indeed a possible niche for the Steam Deck but it's just not the one people think it is.

Ultimately there's more overlap with the games that actually sell numbers on Steam and those that sells on Xbox/Playstation than there is with those that have actually sold on Switch in general. So it might be better as a way to begin stemming the flow of players from PC-to-Console in general than it might be as a mean to start a Switch-to-Steam migration.

@UltimateOtaku91,

I think the lite sells well, but overall the original model is still the top seller, could be wrong.

All consoles have had some issues with stock during the pandemic.

Hell Yeah! Can't stop the switch train!

The switch is crazy.

@UltimateOtaku91 But still it's the best handheld console that I've ever had and hopefully Nintendo stick with this formula for future consoles
That's going to be NIN future plans going forward the more portable power the more gamers. Gamers are not just as others think Couch Potatoes anymore.

@Damo if you aren't aware, you typed PlayStation 4 instead of PlayStation 5 in the second sentence.

@westman98,

I wouldn't hold your breath until that happens, if I were you.

@SwitchForce well I suppose that true if you played the switch outside or on transport but if youre playing in handheld mode on the settee or in bed does that still class as being a couch potatoe 🤔😂

Well yeah...no one is buying last gen and the PS5 and Xbox Series x are still sold out haha. Hard to not be the best selling when theres no competition haha.

PS5 in the mud, time to pack up and make Walkmans.

@UltimateOtaku91 in the Japanese weekly charts the Lite sales seem to be half of the Dock units. And japans a big handheld market

@Mazor775 I agree that the switch looks excellent next to an Xbox series x. I stood in line the day after E3 for 7 hours to see how it would look next to my switch and I’m glad I did. First game I played on my new next gen console new super lucky s tale. Great game btw.

Why can't this be neat like the UK and Japan chart where there's actual numbers? This is basically just some paragraphs of mumble jumble.

@GrailUK but Valve currently does not have any plans to sell the Steam Deck through re-sellers. That is a big misstep on Valve's part if they were trying to compete with Nintendo. It seems they aren't though.

@Damo It wouldn't make sense to compare 'dollars sales' anyways, as the PS5 and Series X are sold at a loss.

@BlubberWhale, article for you, an idea of how things are going in the US

@IronMan30 Maybe they are taking on Amiico?

Yup, despite some hate it gets from small pockets of "core gamers" on the internet, Switch hardware and software still going strong.

Not surprising. We already know the various reasons why the PS5 and XSX couldn't sell - there's simply not enough of them yet.

@GrailUK possibly, it doesn't seem like they care much for going after Nintendo's market share. At least not intentionally.

The people have spoken. The want the best 9th gen system and that is the switch. It has the games. And the versatility of being a home console you can play on the go. And it is going to keep on selling with games like Zelda botw2. Splatoon 3. Metroid prime 4 and bayonetta 3. I am so happy for Nintendo.

Interesting that Mario Golf is doing so well but it seems already forgotten, at least to me.

Honestly, it's a good thing that Nintendo, Playstation, and Xbox are all doing well.

It means the market is very healthy, and regardless of the consoles you prefer, all of them have found success in the marketplace.

I personally prefer Xbox and Nintendo, but I have no issues when Playstation does well.

A heathy console market with three strong competitors means more support and games for everyone.

"For the Nintendo sales chart – that's just games sold on Nintendo platforms – the entire top ten for June was comprised of Nintendo-published titles. The only third-party offering was Minecraft in 10th place, which is published by Nintendo on Switch."

Note to all complaining about lack of third-party support - you have to BUY third-party games to increase support!

@westman98
No it won’t

• Sold online only and only in the Steam store already alienated most demographics outside of gamer enthusiasts and completely negates the impulse buyer factor. Millions of people won’t even know the Deck exists.
• cheapest machines costs $200 more then the cheapest Switch. Many people don’t want to pay the higher model prices either when they can just invest in a gaming laptop that is a better bang for buck
• First parties that won’t ever natively go on PC. Emulation is only something a minority utilize
• Terrible button design

Steam Machine 2.0. Best you can hope for is Deck has a niche cult following just like the Vita except it won’t even be as big as the Vita because that thing at least sold 10-15 million

@MasterJay It doesn’t say. But dollar sales is a stupid metric that Nintendo haters started citing to make it appear like Nintendo is not doing as well. What matters is units sold and profit.

@johnvboy @Arawn93
I probably should have added a "/s" after that comment lol

@Arawn93 Count me as part of the niche cult following. With a wife and four kids, I don’t have the time to boot up my computer and play games. With the Steam Deck, I can finally play my PC games in bed or on the couch. Also, I love my Vita and still play it along with the switch.