During Nintendo’s latest financial report, the company revealed that the Switch’s family of consoles sold 10.67 million units between October and December bringing the Switch to 103.54 million units as of December 31st, 2021.
Not only has the hybrid console surpassed the 100 million milestone but has also surpassed the Wii’s lifetime sales of 101.63 million units officially making the Switch Nintendo’s best-selling home console of all time. The Switch reached that milestone faster than the PS2, PS4 and the Wii, but the DS still reached 100 million units faster than the Switch. This achievement comes exactly one month before the five-year anniversary of the Switch’s launch in March 2017.
It’s not all good news as Switch shipments are down by almost eight percent due to the ongoing global chip shortages. Because of this, Nintendo has revised its Switch shipment forecast from its projected 24 million from November to 23 million. The hybrid console was less affected by the shortage when compared to Sony which sold 3.9 million PS5s in the last quarter of 2021. It was during this quarter that Nintendo launched new hardware, the Switch OLED which sold 3.99 million units which the console manufacturer says it “got off to a good start.”
As far as software sales in the quarter, Nintendo has revealed that together Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl sold 13.97 million units, Mario Party Superstars sold 5.43 million units and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD sold 3.85 million. As for the first new Metroid game in a long time, Metroid Dread has sold 2.74 million units, which is a historical high for the series, beating out the original Metroid game on NES and taking the number 2 spot as the best-selling Metroid game. The number one spot belongs to Metroid Prime which Metroid Dread is only 100,000 units behind, so it’s only a matter of time before Dread takes the number one spot.
When it comes to speculation on acquisitions, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has stated it’s not looking to acquire external publishers and developers the same way that Microsoft and Sony have. Shuntaro said that the Nintendo brand “was built upon products crafted with dedication by our employees, and having a large number of people who don’t possess Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company”. Instead, Nintendo has invested 100 billion yen into bolstering internal development.
That doesn’t mean Nintendo is against acquisitions entirely but is looking to bring in studios that have the Nintendo DNA they are looking for. One such example is Canadian developer, Next Level Games, which developed Luigi Mansion 3. If another developer was on the company’s acquisition purview, it might be one they have worked closely on a project similar to Luigi Mansion 3.
Nintendo has reiterated the Switch is at the midpoint of its life cycle but still has a long way to go when surpassing Nintendo’s best-selling handhelds. First, the Switch has to surpass Game Boy and Game Boy Color’s combined sales of 118.69 million units. Afterward is the behemoth that is the DS which is more than 50 million units away as the dual-screen device has sold over 154.02 million units.
