Nintendo officially has a new MVP in its hardware portfolio.
The venerable video game maker announced in its latest earnings report (via IGN) that the first Nintendo Switch is officially the best-selling piece of gaming hardware in Nintendo history. You can actually see the overall leaderboard on Nintendo’s website, which confirms that the Switch has now sold 155 million units, putting it just ahead of the Nintendo DS, which previously led the pack with 154 million units sold.
I got to play the new Nintendo Switch Virtual Boy. It has the same problem it did in 1995.
To be clear, that does not make the Switch the best-selling piece of gaming hardware, period. That title still belongs to the PlayStation 2, which sits at around 160 million units sold. The Switch could potentially catch up to and even surpass the PS2 if given enough time, but the existence of the Switch 2 might throw a wrench in any future success for the older console.
As an aside, Nintendo also confirmed that the Switch 2 has sold 17 million units in less than a year, putting it well above the 13.5 million units the Wii U sold in its entire lifetime.
Speaking of the Wii U, the runaway success of the Switch didn’t always feel like an inevitability. The oddly named follow-up to the Wii was the company’s biggest failure since the Virtual Boy, and in the months prior to the Switch’s launch in early 2017, it felt like Nintendo needed a hit badly.
Now that the Switch has established itself as the most successful brand in Nintendo history, we can also safely say it was the best idea the company ever had, at the exact time when Nintendo needed it the most.
Maybe someday the Switch 2 will get articles like this, too. Who knows?
