The Nintendo Switch has now outsold the Sony PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Game Boy, becoming the third-bestselling console of all time.
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Nintendo Switch’s sales are now over 122 million
With a total lifetime unit sales of 122.55 million (as of December 2022), the Switch has considerably outsold the combined total of 118.69 million units achieved by the Game Boy and Game Boy Color (collectively known as “Game Boy” by Nintendo) and the 117.2 million units reported by Sony for the PS4.
The Switch sits behind the Nintendo DS which is in second place, with 154 million units sold (excluding the 75.9 million reported for the 3DS), and the PlayStation 2 dominates in first place with more than 155 million reported sales.
With those figures, the Switch still has a long way to go before overtaking once or even twice more.
That is likely to happen, considering the Switch is set to release new game titles like the eagerly-anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom—the sequel to one of Switch’s bestselling game, Breath of the Wild.
Switch’s downward momentum
Despite the achievement, Nintendo reported that Switch sales dropped 23% (from 10.6 million units to 8.2 million sold) in the same quarter (October 1st to December 31st in 2022) of the previous year.
Moreover, the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet may have set the record of the fastest selling games in Nintendo’s history (with 20.61 million units sold in the said period), the overall game sales for the Switch dropped by 4% year-over-year.
Last year in August, Nintendo reported a decrease in shipments and sales due to global chip shortage. Production has since rebounded, with Nintendo projecting sales growth in 2023 due to increased supply.
However, the decreased demand for the Switch was also a factor in lowered sales. Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda told Bloomberg that the outcome was weaker than expected, despite holiday season supply increase. He noted that Switch’s momentum has been downward.
Nintendo may be able to boost Switch sales by releasing special editions to coincide with major releases such as Tears of the Kingdom. Yasuda anticipates that if Nintendo produces at least two, then more than 20 million units could be sold in Nintendo’s next fiscal year.
Additionally, a possible “Switch Pro” model could be released—with its unit sales incorporated with the OLED, Lite, and original Switch models—making the console more likely to dethrone the PS2 as the bestselling console in history.
