Switch sets new US sales record for gaming consoles

The Nintendo Switch is now out there and officially on sale. And if you were maybe thinking there wasn’t a lot of excitement around it, think again. The new console just set a record.

Records broken

According to the New York Times, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime has confirmed that the Switch has beaten the company’s previous sales-record holder, the Wii. That’s most impressive, especially since that console was an unabashed phenomenon. It’s appeal was stunningly broad, and ended up ushering in the age of the casual console gamer. True, it fell off eventually, but the Wii was a beast for a long time.

You know what else the Wii had done? It held the record for overall US sales for a console. And yes, that includes the PS4’s launch numbers. Let that sink in. And the Switch has done even better- despite it not hitting over the holiday shipping season (like the Wii did).

The United States was something of an aberration however. Not that the new console didn’t sell well elsewhere, it just didn’t do as well as it did in the US.

In the UK, the Switch bested the Wii U, but fell to the likes of the original Wii, the PS4, and the Xbox One. In Japan? Nintendo was hoping for a big splash, and sort of had it. Switch sales lagged behind the PS4 there, and trailed the Wii by a healthy margin.

Still though, as industry site MCV points out, the US sales drowned out any sort of negativity that might have arisen from either of those markets. And to make things even rosier, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild scored big. Like BIG big.

Not only has the game cleaned up critically, but it’s even defeated the legendary Super Mario 64 here in the States. Yep, Breath of the Wild is now the best selling launch game for any Nintendo console, and the current king of the charts in the US. It was also the best-selling title in the UK for Nintendo, though it didn’t take top billing at retail. That honor went to Horizon Zero Dawn on the PS4.

Source: MCV