Nintendo has confirmed that hardware sales of the Nintendo Switch have now reached 84.59 million total units, representing an increase of 37.1 per cent year-on-year.
The figures were made public through the company’s financial results for the fiscal year ended on March 31st, 2021.
Launching in March 2017, the handheld/hybrid console has continued to find huge momentum with another 28.3 million units shipped.
At this rate, the Switch is on course to overtake the Nintendo Wii (101.6 million sales) over the next year and become the Japanese firm’s best-selling home console.
Revenue across the 12 month period jumped to ¥1,759 billion ($16 billion), an increase of 34 per cent over the previous year.
Operating profit grew to ¥641 billion ($5.9 billion), similarly rising by an impressive 82 per cent.
While Nintendo itself did not release any new mobile titles in 2020, its previously launched applications and IP-related income grew by 11.3 per cent to generate ¥57 billion ($522 million).
This puts the company in a good position as it reiterated that its Pikmin project (being co-developed with Niantic) is still set to roll out in the latter half of 2021.
New Horizons
Nintendo software sales climbed to 587 million, up 37 per cent year-on-year.
The biggest driver for this was undoubtedly the success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which shipped 20.85 million since April 2020 to reach an incredible 32.63 total sales.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continued its strong form, adding another 10.62 million copies to remain as the console’s best-selling game at 35.39 million units. The kart racer should become the best-selling entry in the franchise by the time Nintendo’s next quarterly results are revealed, with Mario Kart Wii currently sat at 37.32 million copies sold.
The top 10 best-selling Nintendo Switch games worldwide as of March 31st, 2021:
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 35.39 million
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 32.63 million
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 23.84 million
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 22.28 million
- Pokémon Sword/Pokémon Shield – 21.10 million
- Super Mario Odyssey – 20.83 million
- Super Mario Party – 14.79 million
- Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu/Eevee – 13.28 million
- Splatoon 2 – 12.21 million
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 10.44 million
Further notable releases included Ring Fit Adventure (10.11 million), Super Mario 3D All-Stars (9.01 million) and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (5.59 million). The latter already sold more than five million copies on the Wii U, however that version did not include the Bowser’s Fury portion of the game.
Nintendo also noted that there were 36 million-seller titles for this fiscal year, including titles from other software publishers.
Outside of games, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa recently spoke about the possibility of further franchises aside from Mario receiving their own projects in the form of animation.
