Nintendo Switch sells 114 million units, misses forecast

https://www.gamesradar.com/nintendo-switch-sales-likely-to-come-up-short-this-year-despite-hitting-114-million-total-consoles-sold/

The Nintendo Switch won't hit its original sales target for the current fiscal year, Nintendo has revealed.

In its most recent sales forecast, published earlier today on November 8, Nintendo began by announcing that the Switch had hit a monumental 114 million units sold worldwide (thanks, Gematsu). However, sales are expected to slow for the coming months, between now and the end of March 2023.

For the current fiscal year, between April 2022 and March 2023, Nintendo originally expected the Switch to ship 21 million units around the world. That figure has since been revised, with the total number of shipped Switch units now expected to be around 19 million instead, a slight drop of two million units total.

This possibly means Nintendo expects to ship less Switch consoles over the coming few months than it originally anticipated. However, it could also mean that the console has had a weaker fiscal year so far than Nintendo thought it would, leading to less total sales at the end of the fiscal year.

This is the second time this year that Nintendo has lowered sales forecasts for the Nintendo Switch. Earlier this year in March, shortly before the previous fiscal year concluded, the company not only announced console sales for the past year had declined by 20%, but also revised future predictions for less Switch sales in the upcoming fiscal year.

The Nintendo Switch sales might be slowing down somewhat for Nintendo, but at 114 million units sold around the world after nearly six years on the market, it's still a sales powerhouse.

Meanwhile, Pokemon co-developer Creatures is apparently working on "next-generation hardware."

What say you, SW? Are we seeing the last legs of the Switch? Seems so..

The switch had a good run, sold extremely well. Had a superb library. But it is time to move on to the next hardware, the Switch is no NES which effectively had a monopoly. The thing is now 2 generations behind techwise.

I hope Nintendo sticks to one piece of hardware per generation, put all their eggs into one basket.

Meanwhile, Pokemon co-developer Creatures is apparently working on "next-generation hardware."

That is worrisome.

The 10 best-selling first-party Switch titles are:

1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 48.41 million
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 40.17 million
3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 29.53 million
4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 27.79 million
5. Pokemon Sword / Pokemon Shield – 25.37 million
6. Super Mario Odyssey – 24.40 million
7. Super Mario Party – 18.35 million
8. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Pokemon Shining Pearl – 14.92 million
9. Ring Fit Adventure – 14.87 million
10. Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu! / Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee! – 14.81 million

Nintendo also announced the following additional sales numbers:

1. Pokemon Legends: Arceus – 13.91 million
2. Mario Party Superstars – 8.07 million
3. Splatoon 3 – 7.90 million
4. Nintendo Switch Sports – 6.15 million
5. Kirby and the Forgotten Land – 5.27 million
6. Mario Strikers: Battle League – 2.17 million
7. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – 1.72 million

The chip shortage continues to hurt Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft are paying big money to buy up chips but Nintendo doesn’t have deep pockets. Splatoon 3 destroyed Switch stock and Nintendo is still trying to recover.

Nintendont be hurt'en.

I mean compared to previous gens when they sold both a console and handheld with combined sales in the 200 million. ;o

Perhaps they may be the next MS acquisition? Wii60 FTW!! lol :P

Ah I see... didn't they just build a theme park though?

@R4gn4r0k: With the help of deep pockets from Universal Stuidos.

Glad to see Xenoblade 3 is doing ok, considering Nintendo was trying to advertise it a lot. Surprised by Kirby, it was a great game though. Just didn’t think it would sell that much. Splatoon 3 is is interesting. Hoping Bayonetta 3 gets at least 2 million units!

Ah Universal fronted the money, thanks for that vital bit of info, for a minute I was thinking Nintendo was loaded with cash.

@SecretPolice: yep, but times have changed since then. Mobile gaming is big nowadays, and that would have eaten away their marketshare regardless.

I felt like they would make a pretty good phone, I mean it wouldn't be too different from their switch anyways. It wouldn't be too bad of an idea, they can even subsidize their hardware on contracts.

It should be interesting to see where they go next though.

I'd say it still has a shot of getting close to the PS2's lifetime sales. Especially with some huge titles on the horizon, and they haven't really gone down the price drop route yet.

@blaznwiipspman1:

All good and TBH, I was just poking the sheep for SW purposes.

lol :P

Wow.. I didn't realize it had sold that many. Switch may be the goat sales King when all is said and done. Who is now? Ps2?

@SolidGame_basic: Given Pokemon is on the way, I doubt it.

Good. A system that can't handle 3D graphics shouldn't be doing well.

PS2 was 155+ million. I don't think Switch will surpass it. Nintendo has to announce the Switch 2 soon lol.

Million-selling game consoles

Platform	Type	Firm	Released[2]	Units sold	Ref.
PlayStation 2	Home	Sony	2000	>155 million	[note 1]
Nintendo DS	Handheld	Nintendo	2004	154.02 million	[32]
Game Boy & Game Boy Color	Handheld	Nintendo	1989, 1998	118.69 million	[32][note 2]
PlayStation 4	Home	Sony	2013	117.2 million	[34]
Nintendo Switch #	Hybrid	Nintendo	2017	114.33 million	[32]
PlayStation	Home	Sony	1994	102.49 million	[35]
Wii	Home	Nintendo	2006	101.63 million	[32]
PlayStation 3	Home	Sony	2006	>87.4 million	[note 1]
Xbox 360	Home	Microsoft	2005	>84 million	[note 3]
Game Boy Advance	Handheld	Nintendo	2001	81.51 million	[32]
PlayStation Portable	Handheld	Sony	2004	80–82 million (estimate)	[note 1]
Nintendo 3DS	Handheld	Nintendo	2011	75.94 million	[32]
NES/Famicom	Home	Nintendo	1983	61.91 million	[32]
Xbox One	Home	Microsoft	2013	51–58.5 million (estimate)	[43]
SNES/Super Famicom	Home	Nintendo	1990	49.1 million	[32]
Game & Watch	Handheld	Nintendo	1980	43.4 million	[44]
Nintendo 64	Home	Nintendo	1996	32.93 million	[32]
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive	Home	Sega	1988	30.75 million	[note 4]
Atari 2600	Home	Atari	1977	30 million	[48]
PlayStation 5 #	Home	Sony	2020	25 million	[49]
Xbox	Home	Microsoft	2001	24 million	[50]
GameCube	Home	Nintendo	2001	21.74 million	[32]
Wii U	Home	Nintendo	2012	13.56 million	[32]
PlayStation Vita	Handheld	Sony	2011	10–15 million (estimate)	[note 1]
Xbox Series X/S #	Home	Microsoft	2020	12 million (estimate)	[51]
Sega Master System	Home	Sega	1986	10–13 million	[note 5]
Sega Game Gear	Handheld	Sega	1990	10.62 million	[45]
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16	Home	NEC/Hudson Soft[note 6]	1987	10 million	[58]
Sega Saturn	Home	Sega	1994	9.26 million	[46]
Dreamcast	Home	Sega	1998	9.13 million	[46][59][60][61]
Master System (Brazilian variants)	Home	Tectoy	1989	8 million	[62]
Dendy (Famiclone)	Home	Micro Genius	1992	6 million	[63]
Super NES Classic Edition	Dedicated	Nintendo	2017	5.28 million	[64]
Famicom Disk System •	Home console add-on	Nintendo	1986	4.5 million	[65]
NES Classic Edition	Dedicated	Nintendo	2016	3.56 million	[66][67]
Sega Pico	Home	Sega	1993	>3.4 million	[note 7]
WonderSwan	Handheld	Bandai	1999	3.5 million	[note 8]
N-Gage	Handheld	Nokia	2003	3 million	[81]
Mega Drive (Brazilian variants)	Home	Tectoy	1990	3 million	[79][80]
Intellivision	Home	Mattel	1980	3 million	[78]
Color TV-Game	Dedicated	Nintendo	1977	3 million	[76][77]
Sega CD •	Home console add-on	Sega	1991	2.24 million	[45]
ColecoVision	Home	Coleco	1982	>2 million	[note 9]
Magnavox Odyssey²	Home	Magnavox/Philips	1978	2 million	[85]
PC Engine CD-ROM² •	Home console add-on	NEC	1988	1.92 million	[86][87]
Telstar	Dedicated	Coleco	1976	>1 million	[92][note 12]
Philips CD-i	Home	Philips	1990	>1 million	[note 11]
Atari Lynx	Handheld	Atari	1989	>1 million	[note 10]
Atari 7800	Home	Atari	1986	>1 million	[note 13]
Atari 5200	Home	Atari	1982	>1 million	[94]

@TheEroica: Yeah, the PS2 is the biggest-selling console (145M-ish, I believe). If you look at the biggest-selling platforms of all time, the DS family is No. 1 with something like 155M.

Congrats to Nintendo. They’ve been absolutely killing it for like 5 years now with the Switch and numerous fantastic games. It should get another bump soon with Pokemon but it’s time to bring out a more powerful follow up system. I’m definitely looking forward to that.

It is well on its way to become the 3rd highest selling system of all time. I still have doubts that it'll surpass either the DS or PS2, Switch seems to be on its way out.

Just to clarify: Nintendo is NOT building a theme park. Universal Studios property is owned by Universal Studios, parks that are already open and you can visit today if you wanted to. Universal is building a Nintendo themed "land", which if you know the structure of theme parks they're usually distinguished by themed lands (i.e a fantasy themed land, a sci-fi themed land, etc.).

On-topic: the Switch has had a good run, but I think it's time to start considering its successor.

Good ... maybe this time they will announce Switch 2, i love my switch, but is time to move on.

@SolidGame_basic said:

@TheEroica said:

Wow.. I didn't realize it had sold that many. Switch may be the goat sales King when all is said and done. Who is now? Ps2?

PS2 was 155+ million. I don't think Switch will surpass it. Nintendo has to announce the Switch 2 soon lol.

Million-selling game consoles

Platform	Type	Firm	Released[2]	Units sold	Ref.
PlayStation 2	Home	Sony	2000	>155 million	[note 1]
Nintendo DS	Handheld	Nintendo	2004	154.02 million	[32]
Game Boy & Game Boy Color	Handheld	Nintendo	1989, 1998	118.69 million	[32][note 2]
PlayStation 4	Home	Sony	2013	117.2 million	[34]
Nintendo Switch #	Hybrid	Nintendo	2017	114.33 million	[32]
PlayStation	Home	Sony	1994	102.49 million	[35]
Wii	Home	Nintendo	2006	101.63 million	[32]
PlayStation 3	Home	Sony	2006	>87.4 million	[note 1]
Xbox 360	Home	Microsoft	2005	>84 million	[note 3]
Game Boy Advance	Handheld	Nintendo	2001	81.51 million	[32]
PlayStation Portable	Handheld	Sony	2004	80–82 million (estimate)	[note 1]
Nintendo 3DS	Handheld	Nintendo	2011	75.94 million	[32]
NES/Famicom	Home	Nintendo	1983	61.91 million	[32]
Xbox One	Home	Microsoft	2013	51–58.5 million (estimate)	[43]
SNES/Super Famicom	Home	Nintendo	1990	49.1 million	[32]
Game & Watch	Handheld	Nintendo	1980	43.4 million	[44]
Nintendo 64	Home	Nintendo	1996	32.93 million	[32]
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive	Home	Sega	1988	30.75 million	[note 4]
Atari 2600	Home	Atari	1977	30 million	[48]
PlayStation 5 #	Home	Sony	2020	25 million	[49]
Xbox	Home	Microsoft	2001	24 million	[50]
GameCube	Home	Nintendo	2001	21.74 million	[32]
Wii U	Home	Nintendo	2012	13.56 million	[32]
PlayStation Vita	Handheld	Sony	2011	10–15 million (estimate)	[note 1]
Xbox Series X/S #	Home	Microsoft	2020	12 million (estimate)	[51]
Sega Master System	Home	Sega	1986	10–13 million	[note 5]
Sega Game Gear	Handheld	Sega	1990	10.62 million	[45]
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16	Home	NEC/Hudson Soft[note 6]	1987	10 million	[58]
Sega Saturn	Home	Sega	1994	9.26 million	[46]
Dreamcast	Home	Sega	1998	9.13 million	[46][59][60][61]
Master System (Brazilian variants)	Home	Tectoy	1989	8 million	[62]
Dendy (Famiclone)	Home	Micro Genius	1992	6 million	[63]
Super NES Classic Edition	Dedicated	Nintendo	2017	5.28 million	[64]
Famicom Disk System •	Home console add-on	Nintendo	1986	4.5 million	[65]
NES Classic Edition	Dedicated	Nintendo	2016	3.56 million	[66][67]
Sega Pico	Home	Sega	1993	>3.4 million	[note 7]
WonderSwan	Handheld	Bandai	1999	3.5 million	[note 8]
N-Gage	Handheld	Nokia	2003	3 million	[81]
Mega Drive (Brazilian variants)	Home	Tectoy	1990	3 million	[79][80]
Intellivision	Home	Mattel	1980	3 million	[78]
Color TV-Game	Dedicated	Nintendo	1977	3 million	[76][77]
Sega CD •	Home console add-on	Sega	1991	2.24 million	[45]
ColecoVision	Home	Coleco	1982	>2 million	[note 9]
Magnavox Odyssey²	Home	Magnavox/Philips	1978	2 million	[85]
PC Engine CD-ROM² •	Home console add-on	NEC	1988	1.92 million	[86][87]
Telstar	Dedicated	Coleco	1976	>1 million	[92][note 12]
Philips CD-i	Home	Philips	1990	>1 million	[note 11]
Atari Lynx	Handheld	Atari	1989	>1 million	[note 10]
Atari 7800	Home	Atari	1986	>1 million	[note 13]
Atari 5200	Home	Atari	1982	>1 million	[94]

your chart is wrong, I don't know where you got the information from, but its obviously from a cow. Xbox 360 beat the ps3, and has well over 100 million sales. KvallyX or x_hedon or whatever even provided the documented proof. Let that sink in.

Maybe stop spreading fake news??

"But they're the richest company in Japan."

Do I need to dig out the Fortune 500 again? Plus, the way Nintendo's money in the vault is brought up, do people want a real life Hans Gruber or something?

sadly, this is true and an excellent point.

Switch is estimated to sell 19-20 million this year and people are already saying Switch is dying. Sony nor Microsoft has sold 20million units in a year. Deal with it.

@blaznwiipspman1 said:

@SolidGame_basic said:

@TheEroica said:

Wow.. I didn't realize it had sold that many. Switch may be the goat sales King when all is said and done. Who is now? Ps2?

PS2 was 155+ million. I don't think Switch will surpass it. Nintendo has to announce the Switch 2 soon lol.

Million-selling game consoles

Platform	Type	Firm	Released[2]	Units sold	Ref.
PlayStation 2	Home	Sony	2000	>155 million	[note 1]
Nintendo DS	Handheld	Nintendo	2004	154.02 million	[32]
Game Boy & Game Boy Color	Handheld	Nintendo	1989, 1998	118.69 million	[32][note 2]
PlayStation 4	Home	Sony	2013	117.2 million	[34]
Nintendo Switch #	Hybrid	Nintendo	2017	114.33 million	[32]
PlayStation	Home	Sony	1994	102.49 million	[35]
Wii	Home	Nintendo	2006	101.63 million	[32]
PlayStation 3	Home	Sony	2006	>87.4 million	[note 1]
Xbox 360	Home	Microsoft	2005	>84 million	[note 3]
Game Boy Advance	Handheld	Nintendo	2001	81.51 million	[32]
PlayStation Portable	Handheld	Sony	2004	80–82 million (estimate)	[note 1]
Nintendo 3DS	Handheld	Nintendo	2011	75.94 million	[32]
NES/Famicom	Home	Nintendo	1983	61.91 million	[32]
Xbox One	Home	Microsoft	2013	51–58.5 million (estimate)	[43]
SNES/Super Famicom	Home	Nintendo	1990	49.1 million	[32]
Game & Watch	Handheld	Nintendo	1980	43.4 million	[44]
Nintendo 64	Home	Nintendo	1996	32.93 million	[32]
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive	Home	Sega	1988	30.75 million	[note 4]
Atari 2600	Home	Atari	1977	30 million	[48]
PlayStation 5 #	Home	Sony	2020	25 million	[49]
Xbox	Home	Microsoft	2001	24 million	[50]
GameCube	Home	Nintendo	2001	21.74 million	[32]
Wii U	Home	Nintendo	2012	13.56 million	[32]
PlayStation Vita	Handheld	Sony	2011	10–15 million (estimate)	[note 1]
Xbox Series X/S #	Home	Microsoft	2020	12 million (estimate)	[51]
Sega Master System	Home	Sega	1986	10–13 million	[note 5]
Sega Game Gear	Handheld	Sega	1990	10.62 million	[45]
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16	Home	NEC/Hudson Soft[note 6]	1987	10 million	[58]
Sega Saturn	Home	Sega	1994	9.26 million	[46]
Dreamcast	Home	Sega	1998	9.13 million	[46][59][60][61]
Master System (Brazilian variants)	Home	Tectoy	1989	8 million	[62]
Dendy (Famiclone)	Home	Micro Genius	1992	6 million	[63]
Super NES Classic Edition	Dedicated	Nintendo	2017	5.28 million	[64]
Famicom Disk System •	Home console add-on	Nintendo	1986	4.5 million	[65]
NES Classic Edition	Dedicated	Nintendo	2016	3.56 million	[66][67]
Sega Pico	Home	Sega	1993	>3.4 million	[note 7]
WonderSwan	Handheld	Bandai	1999	3.5 million	[note 8]
N-Gage	Handheld	Nokia	2003	3 million	[81]
Mega Drive (Brazilian variants)	Home	Tectoy	1990	3 million	[79][80]
Intellivision	Home	Mattel	1980	3 million	[78]
Color TV-Game	Dedicated	Nintendo	1977	3 million	[76][77]
Sega CD •	Home console add-on	Sega	1991	2.24 million	[45]
ColecoVision	Home	Coleco	1982	>2 million	[note 9]
Magnavox Odyssey²	Home	Magnavox/Philips	1978	2 million	[85]
PC Engine CD-ROM² •	Home console add-on	NEC	1988	1.92 million	[86][87]
Telstar	Dedicated	Coleco	1976	>1 million	[92][note 12]
Philips CD-i	Home	Philips	1990	>1 million	[note 11]
Atari Lynx	Handheld	Atari	1989	>1 million	[note 10]
Atari 7800	Home	Atari	1986	>1 million	[note 13]
Atari 5200	Home	Atari	1982	>1 million	[94]

your chart is wrong, I don't know where you got the information from, but its obviously from a cow. Xbox 360 beat the ps3, and has well over 100 million sales. KvallyX or x_hedon or whatever even provided the documented proof. Let that sink in.

Maybe stop spreading fake news??

If there is someone who is spreading fake news, it's you. PS3 has always beaten the 360 worldwide.

Yikes that chip shortage is real for Nintendo. Well, at least they can say they won this gen.

@kvallyx said:

@SolidGame_basic said:

@blaznwiipspman1 said:

@SolidGame_basic said:

PS2 was 155+ million. I don't think Switch will surpass it. Nintendo has to announce the Switch 2 soon lol.

your chart is wrong, I don't know where you got the information from, but its obviously from a cow. Xbox 360 beat the ps3, and has well over 100 million sales. KvallyX or x_hedon or whatever even provided the documented proof. Let that sink in.

Maybe stop spreading fake news??

If there is someone who is spreading fake news, it's you. PS3 has always beaten the 360 worldwide.

I don’t know about “always” but the ps3 did edge out and beat the 360 in total sales in their respected generation. For SW sake I just say that the 360 won because when the ps3 overtook the 360, ps4/xb1 had already launched, kicking off the new generation.

Switch hardware might be seeing a sales decline but it looks like the software side is still as strong as ever.

Remains to be seen if this is chip shortages hurting Nintendo or market saturation starting to kick in. Either way I still don't think we see a Switch Pro of any sort when we're closing in on six years on the market. A true successor much more likely to get a large amount of those current Switch owners onto the new hardware.

@ermacness: Actually the Wii won.

I don't think it will either. It's already starting to hit that hard sputter the Wii did. Nintendo may as well announce another one instead of letting this thing drag out forever. They owe their fandom more capable hardware than the garbage they put out

You’re correct, the Wii beat out both the ps3, and the 360, but I was just talking about the 360/ps3 since it’s widely, but falsely believed that the 360 officially beat out the ps3 in total sales.

@BenjaminBanklin: Hard putter? It’s about to sell almost 20 million units in 2023. Something no company other than Nintendo has done.

I was just looking at Amazon. Switch is the best seller for all of 2022. And now they also are experiencing a hardware shortage again. 2023 will probably be even better for Switch.

Whatever you say, man. Switch will still be fine for the holidays, but it's time at the top of the charts every month seems like it's beginning to sunset outside of that. Saturation of the market came too fast

Children settle down.

Nintendo do so well with their games so why do they care so much about profiting off hardware sales? Just release a good console and take a hit, people will want to buy it for the amazing Nintendo exclusives + the quality of them will go up

Its really going to be interesting to see what its at by the end of 2023. I know Zelda TOTK is going to boost sales and keep them from falling off to much for at least a little bit. I think 140 is the low ball now and I think it might have a shot at ps2.

A price drop will bring in fence sitters, those who want a newer version, etc..., Millions more of sales are just waiting.

The Switch Lite is already $200. I doubt it will go lower than that. Plus, Nintendo will announce the Switch 2 soon. They’re not going to wait that long to announce it.

Switch is very close to outselling PS4 (117 million) as well as GameBoy and GameBoy Colour (118 million). Once that happens, it will be the third best selling console of all time, being beaten only by PS2 and DS. That is seriously impressive for being the first hybrid console ever built, I can only imagine what the Switch 2 (or whatever it gets called) will end up selling.

The Switch is a handheld and a console. Its farming two systems at once. Its 114mil is 🤡

The lite is a completely different animal offering not all of what it's brother has to give. I think someone called it long in the tooth and while that is true, Nintendo would be crazy to allow millions in sales to evaporate into thin air. From what I am seeing, the company has learned a great deal since the days of the Wii when it prematurely terminated support for an old yet well selling console.

What sales are left though? It’s clearly slowing down and near the end of its life. I don’t think lowering the system by $50 is going to result in millions of unmet demand.

Even without a price drop and being far into its lifespan it is still selling. Demand must be there in some shape or form otherwise it would not be putting up such numbers, albeit slowing numbers nonetheless. Does anyone think we'll see a new console next Christmas? While it should be transitioning into a a Switch successor, I don't think we'll see one for a while just based on Nintendo and how it operates.

@SolidGame_basic: Selling about 20 million consoles in a year is slowing down? Something Sony has never done in one year 😎

I am honestly worried for Nintendo. Sales are slowing down, and their system can't handle 3D graphics. What will you do in 2023? Be worried with me.

@hardwenzen: Go back to playing your handholding walking simulator. You’ve got a lot of padding to get through.