Nintendo's quarterly financial results have been released and they show that Switch, in all its iterations, has now crossed the 130-million-sales mark.
As of 30th September 2023, the lifetime number of Nintendo Switch hardware units sold — including the regular model, Switch Lite, and Switch OLED — stands at 132.46 million, up from 129.53 million last quarter.
Additionally, the number of overall software sales on Switch now stands at a whopping 1.133 billion units, comfortably ahead of Nintendo DS' measly 948.76 million.
The success of games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (which has shifted nearly 20 million copies itself) has helped Nintendo increase its year-on-year hardware sales for the first two quarters by 2.4% to 6.86 million unit sales since April 2023 — not a huge increase, but any increase at this late point in the console's lifecycle remains impressive. Indeed, Nintendo is expecting better-than-previously-forecast profits — thanks largely to differences in exchange rates — and has also modified its financial forecast accordingly.
The OLED model was the clear preference for people buying a Switch recently. Here's the breakdown of sales between the different members of the Switch 'family' for the first six months of Nintendo's FY2024 (since April 2023):
- Total Switch hardware sales FY2024/Q1+Q2: 6.84 million
- Total Standard Switch sales FY2024/Q1+Q2: 1.25 million
- Total Switch OLED sales FY2024/Q1+Q2: 4.69 million
- Total Switch Lite sales FY2024/Q1+Q2: 0.90 million
Switch still sits over 20 million sales shy of Nintendo DS at the top of the overall sales hardware table. Here's how things stand as of 30th September 2023:
| Console | Total Sales (Millions) |
|---|---|
| DS | 154.02 |
| Switch | 132.46 |
| Game Boy | 118.69 |
| Wii | 101.63 |
| Game Boy Advance | 81.51 |
| 3DS | 75.94 |
| Family Computer / NES | 61.91 |
| Super Family Computer / SNES | 49.10 |
| N64 | 32.93 |
| GameCube | 21.74 |
| Wii U | 13.56 |
Remember, these figures stand correct as of 30th September, so any effect from the release of Super Mario Wonder (20th Oct) isn't reflected in these figures — we'll have to wait until February to see how that game, the upcoming slate of Switch releases (including Super Mario RPG), and the company's aggressive Holiday marketing will affect the ageing console's fortunes.
Nintendo recently revealed several new hardware/software bundles ahead of the lucrative Black Friday period, and with whispers of a Switch successor suggesting that this may be Switch's final Holiday season as the company's sole hardware offering, Nintendo will be looking to squeeze every last drop of juice from its battery bunny of the console world.
Impressed? Do you think it has a hope in hell of hitting the heights of DS and PS2? Let us know below.