Video Games

Nintendo Switch closes in on 140 million lifetime sales

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe cleared 60 million sales in the meantime

Marco Wutz

Nintendo Switch closes in on 140 million lifetime sales
Nintendo Switch closes in on 140 million lifetime sales /

It’s a happy day for data nerds out there, as Nintendo has updated its published financials today to include all the important business numbers up to December 31, 2023. Headlining the update, of course, is the Nintendo Switch, which reached 139.36 million lifetime sales last year – 140m sales are so close, they can practically smell the milestone.

In terms of games, the eternal classic Mario Kart 8 Deluxe just keeps on selling – evidently there are still people on the planet that don’t have the game, somehow. MK8 Deluxe now sits on 60.58 million sold copies, putting it comfortably ahead of Animal Crossing: New Horizons (44.79m) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (33.67m), which complete the top three.

Nintendo Switch Zelda OLED model.
2023 was another massive year for Switch and Zelda / Nintendo

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet is keeping a strong sales pace as well, amounting to 24.36 million sold copies at the end of 2023. This makes it the second best-selling Pokémon game on Switch and third best-selling Pokémon game in history, behind Pokémon Sword & Shield (26.17m) in both of these categories. We’ll likely see Scarlet & Violet overtake Sword & Shield this year, lining up behind the all-time best-seller Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green on the historical ranking.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom stood at 20.28 million sold copies at the end of its launch year, trailing around eleven million sales behind Breath of the Wild – its pace of sales is perhaps a little slower than expected, but that doesn’t tarnish its massive success.

Conversely, this number of sales finally confirms what Warner Bros. Games has claimed earlier this year already: Hogwarts Legacy is officially the best-selling game of 2023, out-selling Tears of the Kingdom by about two million units. With the wizard RPG releasing much earlier in the year and on several platforms, Tears of the Kingdom still put up a massive fight in this race.

Tears of the Kingdom is Nintendo’s biggest Switch game

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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