Nintendo has shipped nearly 80 million Switch consoles

Nintendo has shipped a total of 79.87 million units of the console since the Switch was launched in 2017. With that, the Switch has overtaken the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo only delivered more copies of the Nintendo DS, Game Boy and Wii.

In the last three months of 2020, Nintendo shipped 11.56 million Switch consoles, of which 3.16 million were Switch Lite copies. Due to the good sales, the total number of Switch consoles delivered rose to almost 80 million and with that the Nintendo 3DS has overtaken. A total of almost 76 million of all variants of that handheld have been delivered.

There are three more consoles that Nintendo has made more of in its history: the Wii, Game Boy, and Nintendo DS. Of these, 101.6, 108.7 and 154 million copies were delivered respectively. The Switch has been on the market since 2017 and has not yet reached the end of its life cycle. According to Nintendo estimates, some 74 million Switch consoles have actually been sold to date. The rest are still in stores.

Nintendo sold 256 billion yen worth of digital games between April and December last year. That was an increase of 105 percent from a year earlier. Of all games delivered, 40.9 percent were digital copies, compared to 28.6 percent a year earlier.

During the fiscal year, 29 Switch titles were shipped more than a million times, including 20 games from Nintendo itself. In total, Nintendo has shipped 532.3 million Switch games to date. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe takes the top spot with 33.4 million copies, followed by Animal Crossing: New Horizons with 31.2 million copies and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate of which 22.9 million copies have been delivered.

Nintendo announced the new details about the deliveries at the presentation of the quarterly figures. They look rosy, thanks to good sales of both hardware and software. In the period from April to December, the last three quarters of the financial year, sales amounted to 1404 billion yen, 37.3 percent higher than a year earlier. Net profit was 376.6 billion yen, 91.8 percent more than a year earlier. Converted, the profit is about 3 billion euros.

The company is again raising its expectations for the entire financial year. By the end of the year, which ends at the end of March, Nintendo expects to have shipped 26.5 million copies of the Switch and 205 million games. In November, those expectations were still estimated at 24 million consoles and 170 million games. Nintendo reports in its updated forecast that annual sales will reach 1600 billion yen and profits will reach 400 billion yen. Converted that is about 12.6 billion and 3.2 billion euros.