Nintendo Has Revealed October US Sales Numbers For Metroid Dread And The Switch

The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console in the US in October and Nintendo has officially revealed how many consoles it sold during that month. According to the NPD Group, the Nintendo Switch continues to lead in the number of consoles sold in the US in 2021, although the PS5 leads in terms of dollar amount sold.

In an interview with The Verge, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser said that the Switch sold 711,000 units overall in October, with 314,000 of those being the brand-new OLED model. Bowser noted that these numbers were down 3% from last October, in part because of the ongoing chip shortage resulting in production shortages.

Bowser also revealed that Metroid Dread, which launched on the same day as the Nintendo Switch OLED, October 8, sold 854,000 units in the US. That makes it "the best start for any Metroid game ever," Bowser said. Bowser also said that Animal Crossing: New Horizons got a significant bump in October in anticipation of its massive free update and the Happy Home Paradise DLC that both released in early November. Bowser did not provide exact numbers for Animal Crossing, but it was the 15th best-selling game across all platforms in October only counting physical sales. For reference, Metroid Dread was at number three, only counting its digital sales.

In GameSpot's Metroid Dread review, critic Steven Petite gave it an 8/10, writing, "More than anything else, Metroid Dread feels like going back to a place of comfort after a long time away. Though the gameplay is refined and new features have been added to the mix, Dread sticks closely to the formula of its predecessors. In the end, for longtime fans like myself, that's probably for the best. There's nothing to dread here. We're home again."