Today Nintendo reached out with a press release announcing that the Switch has been named the fastest-selling console of the current generation in the United States by the NPD group.
According to the press release, over 8.7 million Switch units have been sold in the country since its release in March 2017 and until the end of November 2018, outpacing all other current-generation consoles at the same point in their life cycle.
The press release mentions that Nintendo is also the top-selling software publisher in 2018 in the U.S. at least until November. A further boost to this performance is expected to come from sales of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which shipped 3 million units in just 11 days according to Nintendo’s own data. This means that it’s the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch game of all time, but also the fastest-selling game in the Super Smash Bros. franchise.
Nintendo of America Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Doug Bowser accompanied the press release with a comment.
“We are thrilled to see such a strong reaction from consumers in the second holiday season for Nintendo Switch. We’re looking forward to delivering more excitement and smiles to our fans in the coming year and beyond.”
The house of Mario and Zelda also provided additional figures, which you can read below. Do keep in mind that they’re specific to the United States market only.
- Nintendo eShop sales have grown 105 percent over 2017.
- Evergreen Nintendo Switch games have set new milestones, with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe selling over 4 million and 5 million units, respectively.
- Super Mario Odyssey has sold over 4.7 million units.
- In addition to the fast-selling Super Smash Bros. Ultimate game, other recently released games that continue to make a splash include Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!, which together total 2 million units and Super Mario Party at 1.4 million.
While we don’t have further recent data about worldwide sales, for now, we know that the Switch is doing very well in Japan as well, where it has just passed six million units sold-through to customers.
