Nintendo Switch global sales have reached new heights, with the company reporting it sold about 3.91 million units of the console for Q1 fiscal year 2024, which ended on June 30. Many of these new sales Nintendo says were driven by the sales of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Tears of the Kingdom released on May 12, 2023, and was a big factor in both hardware unit sales and software unit sales. The game sold 18.91 million units as of June 30. Nintendo was likely optimistic about the game’s potential success leading up to launch. After all it is a new mainline Zelda title. And the hype and anticipation for it leading up to launch was immense. But it’s unclear if Nintendo expected the game to do this well.
Its 18.91 million sales in the three-month period makes it Nintendo’s fastest-selling Zelda game ever. It’s also the fastest-selling game for any Nintendo system in North America and Europe. About 10 million of those units came out of the game’s first three days post launch. Jumping up to over 15.70 million sales in just 8 weeks.
Nintendo Switch global sales have reached over 129 million units
As part of Nintendo’s Q1 FY2024 earnings report, the company states that the Switch has reached a total sales of 129.53 million units to date. This is for the entire family of Switch systems which include the original Nintendo Switch, the Switch Lite, and the Switch OLED. The last of which made up the majority of unit sales this quarter.
The 3.91 million units sold in the three-month period makes it a 13.9% increase year-over-year, Nintendo says. Reaching only 3.43 million units by the same time last year. The switch is still pacing behind the company’s most popular system, the DS, which had a lifetime sales of 154.02 million units. But the Switch has been insanely successful for Nintendo nonetheless. Having the highest number of software sales of any system in the company’s history at 1,088.35 million units.
It’ll also be interesting to see how close the Switch can get to beating the DS in overall lifetime sales. Nintendo is rumored to be targeting a late 2024 release of the Switch successor. Giving Nintendo plenty of time break that record.