Nintendo Switch Is Closing In On One Billion Software Sales

“ Console has now sold more software than the DS”

Makes sense considering how many people got a R4 on the DS and called it a day.

At certain point I got parents at my door asking me to fix free games, because I knew how even while I always bought every of my DS games… but being a tech geek was the reason I knew it.

I can thank my (back then) 8 years old sister for telling it to all the kids she knew, because well it was cool to brag about a older sibling having that knowledge.

Yeah… she was a little kiddo but I rather had her never mention it, once I got a angry father when he wanted me to fix it for his kiddo, and I said “buy games legally” and the guy flipped because “I AM NOT GOING TO PAY €49.99 FOR A STUPID GAME!”

I said to him he should steal his neighbour’s car, he didn’t get it and when I explained him what he does is stealing, he said “digital goods can not be stolen”

Meh

Not the best memories from the DS era I have.

That is incredible. Well done.

@Rayquaza2510 that father is an ass.

But yeah, i also don’t like people pirating games when there’s an option to buy them legally, e.g. current systems. Let the developers and artists have their reward for their hard work.

Good to see Nintendo Switch sells games, even though the first iteration can easily be hacked. I think emulation is one of the reasons why we’re not having an upgraded switch.

@Rayquaza2510

What got me ticked. I bought a European copy ds game that had a corroded profile slot & managed to call the company that released the game in the US as well. When I asked for help how to fix the corroded profile slot on the ds game. I was cussed out by the developer on the phone telling me that's what I got for not buying locally over here (US) mean while the majority of my ds games are American copies bought legally over here. Neatless to say I purposely imported even more so because the game developer ticked me off & also after that any other games the game developer came out with i purposely bought the European copy of instead of the American copies by that developer...

Think about that…close to 1 Billion units of software on one console.This is without the help of massive franchises such as COD, Madden and GTA not to mention this gen has been hampered with the chip shortages. An impressive feat with those circumstances. Such a complete contrast from the software hampered Wii U era. These figures justify my Switch backlog lol. Congratulations to Nintendo, this is a big accomplishment and milestone. Nintendoooooomed! 😭

Not sure that means much in a time that when there are so many cheap 99c games in the store.

The thing that’s being forgotten here though is that while the Switch may have exceeded the DS’ software sales (which is very impressive), it hasn’t exceeded the DS and Wii combined software sales, as this console effectively replaced both console divisions. Still, it seems like the Switch has been enough of a success that they’re going into the next generation in a great position.

I personally do really love my Switch.

@Tharsman That is also a good point.

I'm calling BS on those numbers.

Every single DS game was physical.

And perhaps what would pass as a typical $5-$10 game today would have been a US$30-$40 retail product over 15 years ago (it just dawned on me that the DS is approaching its twentieth anniversary next year!). The typical retail price for a DS game in Australia was an absurd AU$70.

With so many games on Switch selling for as little as a dollar (sometimes less), this is not a fair comparison at all, as already pointed out.

These numbers may also include DSiWare sales, but those are a mere drop in the ocean, especially as it had virtually no "must have" titles (though they also had the benefit of being available via the 3DS eShop).

They're still solid numbers, but a breakdown of those sales (if possible) would be more useful.

@TotalHenshin Even Switch didn't surpass DS + Wii software & hardware combined, the Switch's profit already surpassed DS + Wii's profit combined. Someone here have that data. Switch console & games are more pricier + Eshop digital games + smartphone business sure helping that fact (coming soon movie business & theme park business 😀 👍)

@Tharsman There's a line in the report that states the software figure doesn't include 'Download-only software or add-ons', so unless the 99c games have a physical edition they're not counted.

Makes sense really, given the install base - 900m+ is less than 10 games per system.

@Tharsman This number reported by Nintendo does not include these cheap digital only games, only games with a non limited physical release are counted.

On a side note, I’m curious to know just how much software and revenue has been generating since the announcement of the 3DS/Wii U Eshops closing. 10 yr old games still selling at full price, digitally mind you, has to be lining someone’s pockets!

That is a lot of software, dang.

@Rayquaza2510 Piracy is probably the reason I cannot find good retro games around my area. Almost every Wii, Wii U and 3DS system sold second-hand around here has a chip or hack for "adding games to the system". When I'm looking for actual games I only find shovelware, games nobody wants or games everyone already have. Very rarely I have been able to find something good unless it's for Switch.

Edit
@Barbiegurl777 I'm curious about it, what game was it?

When it comes to imported games, I mostly find European DS games, mostly licensed games or shovelware. I have copies of both, Zubo and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. None of them work so instead of going through the hurdles of fixing them, I decided to tear them apart and use the cartridge as covers for my systems.

Anyway, on-topic. Of that close to a billion, I'm only a contributor of about 16. Of the 23 physical games I own, Mario & Sonic Tokyo 2020, Snipperclips Plus, Mario Odyssey, Sonic Mania Plus, Sonic Forces, Metroid Dread, Namco Museum Arcade Pac are all games I got second-hand, so someone else bought those. Metroid Dread is a game I would've gotten new if it wasn't for the fact that it's a Special Edition, though I'm not closed to the idea of buying another copy for my nephew.

It would be interesting to compare the software sales and attach rates for each of the consoles of this gen.

Those numbers doesn't really matter for me whether good or bad sales.
The only matter for me is the games that matched with my personality.

@BTB20 @dmcc0 Interesting... now I actually want to know how much software they sold if they did count sales digital only software above $19.99.

Would be cool to have this numbers for other consoles like PS 2 or 4 which i think are the most succesful ones, and since it is said that the real business is in software, knowing those numbers makes more sense

I wonder how much the sales equal though. I've bought like 10 games when they dropped to 1 dollar, I never did that on ds obviously.

@HammerGalladeBro

Retro games are hard to find because things like eBay prices, , collectors, not being made anymore, not so much piracy. The prevalence of modded systems and not enough carts is because the demand outstripped the supply. IMO , the thing way worse than personal piracy is bootlegs. That’s unethical and sometimes does stop legitimate sales, but usually only current gen stuff is affected.

Then go on to state you mostly buy 2nd hand, which is just as non beneficial to the devs, and wonders where the supply of good retro games is…. Another person like you bought em all already!

What's so impressive is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe alone makes up more than 5% of that total figure.

Would be higher if they bothered to do some decent deals on their first party games lol

@TotalHenshin,

No console generation is going to sell 260 million or so, the DS and Wii U were lightning in a bottle, two products that got in early and took full advantage of the motion and touch screen tech, it's just an unreasonable target to judge things by.

@Sisilly_G,

Or a very popular console has sold lots of games.

When is the switch 2 releasing? need more power and better looking games

@Barbiegurl777 Absolutely deserved. As someone who works in retail, you do NOT piss off customers. You can tell them they're wrong, deny them service, anything that they don't want to hear reasonable people are willing to accept your answer unless you do it in a manner that makes them feel disrespected. That's when you learn of a consumer's ire.

@HammerGalladeBro

It was Baby Life nintendo DS. I still have the European Version of the game. It has 3 profile slots & 1 profile slot corroded.

@Kilroy

Uhh no. I defently did not deserve being cussed out over the phone asking for help how to fix a corroded profile slot for when the past 30+ years I've bought pretty much every game over here in the game stores. The only thing that developer did was loose me permanently as a gamer & customer for being rude over the phone. I had a similar stunt pulled on me back in the early 2000's when I went to trade in my game boy color & then be accused of "stealing" my own teal gameboy color by the store employee when I asked why they wouldn't take it on trade in they accused me of stealing it because the barcode on the back was removed (by me) I took off the bar code sticker half because it was turning yellow & also it dawned on me one day well if I go to the store & buy something & remove the tags after I bought whatever why not remove the barcode sticker because I was looking at it in the same sense when I explained it to the store manager there only answer was well we can't take it without the barcode on the back. They got me so ticked I told them fine I'll give the game boy color to my cousin FREE of charge & you just lost a sale. I ended up buying my pink see through gameboy advance purposely from another store because of there stunt. I later did give my cousin my old teal gameboy color & explained to her what happened & at the time I had 6 of my gameboy / gameboy color games with me I let her pick any 2 she wanted FREE to go along with her "new" handheld. Could I have traded in the games? Yes. Did I? No was ticked at the game store back then. I was taught for the most part the customer is always right. I miss when I would go to a game store & person would ask if I needed any help & tried to be a real person. The last couple of years I went to gamestop they don't try to help the customers, a very cold demeanor to them, & if I ask if they have any knowledge on a certain game there selling they don't know what there games are about. I was told at gamestop one time you have eyes read the back of the box if you want to know what's in it... Doesn't that tick a person off from going back to there store? It did with me to the point I either buy my games online or other stores than the actual game stores because there level of rudeness. No customer or gamer needs to put up with crap like that. My money will spend anywhere anytime~ 😎🔥🤙

Well that's not surprising since they only have one Console and games play in all of the v1, v1, OLED, Lite are the same cart factor. That's how you keep market shares.

HOW MUCH?! Jeebus, that's a lot of software!

@Barbiegurl777 "Uhh no. I defently did not deserve being cussed out over the phone asking for help how to fix a corroded profile slot for when the past 30+ years I've bought pretty much every game over here in the game stores."

One of us is misunderstanding here. When I said "Absolutely deserved", I meant the American company you were buying from deserved to lose you as a customer for how they treated you. You were not wrong in what you did, I agree with you there...

However, as for peeling off the Game Boy sticker, you WERE wrong there. 100%. Those stickers are intended to never come off naturally and stores in all kinds of businesses have to deal with theft every day, so those stickers serve as a deterrent to help prevent thieves from peeling them off and placing them on different devices.

They are not the same as removing tags or plastic wrap that's intended to be removed after purchase.

@Kilroy

To my credit the gameboy color was my first handheld & I can honestly say at the I didn't know. The game store could have said something instead of picking up the phone in front of me & calling the police like they had something to hide. It made me feel like 2 cents when I did nothing wrong. The only reason they hung up the phone was because i admitted i took the sticker off. I purposely avoided going back to that gamestop year's after that because of that experience. I get it now with the barcode sticker crap but back then I really didn't know. My cousin ended up with the better deal though out of it. She got my teal gbc & I let her pick any 2 gb games she wanted free. To my credit the games I showed her I was either done with or thinking of already trading in lol but after that with gamestop is precisely why I let her have 2 games instead of them besides they never give much on a trade in anyways then turn around sell the game used at a jacked up price. 🤦‍♀️ I defently miss Electronics Boutique & even Block Busters both had friendlier staff there than at gamestop & actually trying to help the customer. 🤷‍♀️✌️

Happy Gaming! (^_^)