Nintendo talks continued Switch hardware/software sales, Zelda milestones, and expanded franchise reach

As part of Nintendo’s latest fiscal results briefing, the company shared a look at how the Switch continues to sell strongly, and software grows along with it. Switch has achieved franchise-best sales for many of its software titles, reversing a trend for some of Nintendo’s IP. You can see the complete breakdown of details below.

• Switch is at 132 million units sold worldwide
• Switch software is at 1.13 billion units sold worldwide
• first-party software sell-through from April to September of this fiscal year reached the second-highest level since the launch of Switch
• the scale of software sales remains at a high level even now in the platform’s seventh year

• Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom exceeded 17.6 million units sold as of the end of September
• global excitement and positive reception at launch exceeded Nintendo’s expectations
• the strong reaction from players not only increased the title’s visibility, but it also helped reaffirm the strength of Nintendo Switch
• on Switch, sales of The Legend of Zelda software have grown dramatically compared to past titles in the series
• Zelda series entries prior to Switch tended to have lower sales in Japan than in other regions, but The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, following the path set by its predecessor, has already sold 3 million copies in Japan
• Zelda has grown into a long-beloved series with many fans across all regions, accompanied by a significant growth in sales

• on Switch, many series titles have grown
• Nintendo has been able to record sales for new games in existing series that exceed sales for past installments
• a trend seen in many Switch titles is that they mature into long-term sellers
• before Switch, sales of series like Animal Crossing and Kirby were primarily driven by the Japanese market
• With Switch, Nintendo has greatly increased sales in other regions and are seeing worldwide interest
• Nintendo’s dedicated game business sales for the fiscal year ended March 2023 grew to approximately 3.3 times that of the fiscal year ended March 2017
• within the increase, markets outside of Japan, the Americas and Europe, such as the Asia and Oceania region, have increased their presence, with sales growing approximately 5.5 times over the same period
• Nintendo believes this is because they have strengthened the localization process for first-party titles and made many of them available in a variety of different languages

• the number of titles sold by external software publishers grew significantly between the fiscal year ended March 2018 and the fiscal year ended March 2021, and has remained constant since then
• sales results for Switch remained at a high level not only for Nintendo titles, but also for titles from other software publishers