More Than 6 Golden Coins
Nintendo’s financial results for the period ending March 31st, 2021 has been released (Nintendo’s overview available here), revealing that the dominating popularity of the Switch, in conjunction with key titles like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, has led to Nintendo’s most profitable year ever- and their second-highest in net sales.
Overall sales increased by more than 34% to approx. $16.1 billion USD from the $11.9b last year, falling about $0.7b shy of its 2009 record yet surpassing 2008’s by $0.8b. Meanwhile, operating profits increased by over 81% and net profits by over 85%.
Chasing the Bronze, Eyeing the Silver
The Switch itself now stands at almost 85 million units sold (almost 15m of which are Switch Lites), with nearly 29 million of those sold last year (with about 8.5m of those being Lites). This pushes the console past the lifetime unit sales of both the 3DS (~75.9m) and Game Boy Advance (~81.5m) to leave only the Wii (~101.6m), Game Boy/Game Boy Color (~118.7m), and DS/DS Lite (~154m) families ahead of it on the charts.
Nintendo also expects the Switch to surpass the Wii’s unit sales this year, despite forecasting a sales decline in the wake of post-pandemic restrictions being lifted. While the Switch may be considered a console/handheld hybrid system, that achievement would make it the top-selling Nintendo console in history (and leave the Game Boy’s record within striking distance).
And, if one does count the Switch as a handheld system (perfectly reasonable, given the inability of the Switch Lite to dock to a TV), Game Rant and Nintendo Life point out that Nintendo has now sold over half a billion handheld systems across all product families. A figure that eclipses Nintendo’s combined console range and Sony’s PlayStation family.
Tom Nook & the Chartbreakers
Led by the break-out success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the continued success of multiple evergreen titles, 36 Switch titles sold more than a million units this past year- 22 of which were first-party titles with over two-thirds of those selling past the 3 million threshold. In total, the Switch sold over 230 million software units- a figure even more impressive when one considers that the Switch doesn’t get ports of many annual title mainstays such as Call of Duty and various sports franchises that usually boost other platforms. Digital downloads on the Switch also saw an increase of 34%, peaking during the middle of last year when lockdown restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic were most severe.
Animal Crossing topped the year with over 20 million units sold, bringing it to a total of over 32m sold since it launched at the end of the last fiscal year. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continued its run with another 10 million units, for a lifetime total of over 35m. As Jeff Grubb points out, this has MK8D’s 2020 sales outselling Ghosts of Tsushima and Final Fantasy VII Remake, among other heavy-hitters.
The limited release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars achieved over 9 million units sold, while the more recent launch of Super Mario World + Bowser’s Fury pulled in over 5m units in less than two months of release. Paper Mario: The Origami King moved 3.1m units since its debut last summer. Meanwhile, the RC AR toy/game Mario Kart: Home Circuit has sold 1.27m units so far and the recently-updated Super Mario Party sold almost another 4.7m units (its lifetime unit sales now stand at almost 14.8m).
The remaining first-party, million-sellers from last year are: Ring Fit Adventure (7.3m), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (5m), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (4.8m), New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (3.8m) Pokémon Sword/Shield (3.7m), Super Mario Odyssey (3.4m), Luigi’s Mansion (3.2m), Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (3.1m), Paper Mario: The Origami King (3.1m), Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (3m), Splatoon 2 (2m), Pikmin 3 Deluxe (2m), Super Mario Maker 2 (1.6m), Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition (1.5m), Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!/Eevee! (1.3m) & The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (1.1m).
Top 20 Selling Switch Games
These new numbers leave Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as the Switch’s chart-topper (kart-topper?), even though Animal Crossing has come perilously close to surpassing the racer in just over a year. The Switch’s lifetime overall Top 20 sellers now stand at:
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (35.39m)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons (32.63m)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (23.84m)
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (22.28m)
- Pokémon Sword / Pokémon Shield (21.10m)
- Super Mario Odyssey (20.83m)
- Super Mario Party (14.79m)
- Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! (13.28m)
- Splatoon 2 (12.21m)
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (10.44m)
- Ring Fit Adventure (10.11m)
- Luigi’s Mansion 3 (9.59m)
- Super Mario 3D All-Stars (9.01m)
- Super Mario Maker 2 (7.15m)
- Monster Hunter Rise (6m)
- Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (5.59m)
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (5.49m)
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (3.7m)
- Among Us (3.2m)
- 1-2-Switch (3.18m)
And now that 2020 is behind us, we can look forward to the upcoming Nintendo slate for 2021 (what we know of it so far, at least!) and the continuing momentum of the Switch. Let’s-a go!
