Nintendo Crosses 700 Million Units of Hardware Sold

D.Lo · Aug 12, 2018

700 million was hit a year ago though?

Really needs VB, Color TV Game, and Pokemon mini added, though they's only add a couple of million.
Game & Watch possibly too, though maybe they should count as games sold rather than consoles.

Aquamarine said:
It's because the video game market was much, MUCH smaller back in the 1980's-1990's...it was a tiny fraction of today's size. Back then if you sold 50-60 million consoles you ruled the entire gaming world, when today that would be considered average / decent.

No? The poster was talking about America. The NES so ~35 million on North America - aka in the same ballpark scale-wise as PS1 and Wii - when everything else sold basically zero. It dominated like nothing ever has before or since. The market wasn't 'much smaller', inflation adjusted (or even just population adjusted) it was probably somewhat similar to today. It's just there was no viable competition.

3DS is like 22 million in NA, it's smaller in absolute terms, let alone relative. 3DS total vs NES is bolstered by being Japan's dominant platform most of its life and the Nintendo not having gotten into Europe yet in any serious at the time of the NES.

Guaraná · Aug 12, 2018

Eorl said:
Wait a second, I didn't think Switch was that close to 20 million. How the hell did people doubt it'll get to 20 million by end of the year?

it's 20 million during the fiscal year alone.
and the fiscal year ends in March, 2019.

Skittzo · Aug 12, 2018

Eorl said:
Wait a second, I didn't think Switch was that close to 20 million. How the hell did people doubt it'll get to 20 million by end of the year?

People aren't doubting that its lifetimes sales will reach 20M this year, rather they're doubting that they will sell an additional 20M this year, between this April and next April.

Deleted member 6573 · Aug 12, 2018

Deleted member 5535 · Aug 12, 2018

And It's curious how Game&Watch isn't counted in those or even by Nintendo even if it sold more than 30 million. Maybe it's because it isn't a dedicated console like the handhelds or consoles?

Terraforce said:
Wow, props to Nintendo of course, but if anything this just highlights how crazy Sony's pace has been with their HW. They had 6 consoles versus Nintendo's 11 (nearly double) and the difference is only ~200M? Now that's wild.

EDIT: OP doesn't include the Virtual Boy, and idk if Nintendo made anything else, but that would technically be more than double the console difference. Astonishing once put into perspective.

Nintendo don't count the Virtual Boy and to be fair, it shouldn't even be counted.

Plankton2 said:
So Average Home Console sales per device (excluding the switch) is 46.8M for a yearly average (from 83-17) of 8.26M

And average Handheld sales per device is 106.78M for a yearly average (from 89-18) of 14.73M

Handheld is definitely the strength

For sure. Nintendo is much more consistent on the handheld front. Even if the sales got a bit of down like GBA and 3DS, they still sold a pretty big amount of units much like Sony with the PS3, for example.

Deleted member 249 · Aug 12, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
And It's curious how Game&Watch isn't counted in those or even by Nintendo even if it sold more than 30 million. Maybe it's because it isn't a dedicated console like the handhelds or consoles?

Yeah, neither Game and Watch nor Color TV Game are counted. They would add another 33 million (with another 10 million from VB+NESC+SNESC).

Guaraná · Aug 12, 2018

Nintendo found it's niche and found a way to survive, and be VERY profitable, while fighting two eletronic/tech giants like Microsoft and Sony. And they're relevant. That's huge.

Nintendo might not be the absolute market leader like once was, but it's a very solid, profitable and innovative company.

Deleted member 3335 · Aug 12, 2018

Aquamarine said:
No, the market was actually a lot smaller.

In 1987 the USA video game market was $750 million according to old internal Nintendo of America data I have. Nintendo comprised at least $500 of that $750 million.

Adjusted for inflation that's a market size of $1.7 billion in today's dollars.

According to NPD data, the USA video game market topped $14.59 billion in 2017. It's MUCH larger today than it used to be in the 80's and 90's.

Trust me...I have a bunch of old NPD data. Video games just didn't sell like they do today...which was fine because development costs were super low.

Population also grow close to 100million people since 1985.

The Artisan · Aug 12, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
It definitely is. Wii/360/PS3/DS/PSP sold together more than 500 milion

the home consoles together sold a lot of units. I reckon a lot of people who owned Wii, also owned either a Ps3 or a 360 because of the 3rd party games the Wii didn't have. as a result, they all sold well even though the Wii was the undisputed king

ZeoVGM · Aug 12, 2018

fiendcode said:
Take GB Pocket, GB Color and Snes Jr out of that 229.7m. The gap's grown overall.

... Could you translate this into something that makes sense?

Deleted member 249 · Aug 12, 2018

ZeoVGM said:
... Could you translate this into something that makes sense?

I think he's saying that if you take out systems that were sold contemporaneously to the PS1, but not part of the PS1 generation, the gap would be bigger than 229.7 million.

D.Lo · Aug 12, 2018

Aquamarine said:
No, it was actually a lot smaller.

In 1987 the USA video game market was $750 million according to old internal Nintendo of America data I have.

Nintendo comprised at least $500 of that $750 million.

Adjusted for inflation that's $1.7 billion.

According to NPD data, the USA video game market was topped $14.59 billion in 2017. It's MUCH larger today than it used to be in the 80's and 90's.

Yeah nah those figures make no sense and/or are too early to mean anything.

The NES sold ~33.5 million (from wiki, don't have better data right now) in North America, and sold at various prices from $200-90 over its lifespan. NES hardware sales alone would have been a billion a year some years, unadjusted for inflation. Game sales would have been multiples of that, and that's Nintendo alone.

The NES literally sold more than the PS4 has so far in America. PS4 will eventually pass it but not by any huge factor. In the meantime America has added 1/3 to its population.

The NES in NA was truly a phenomenon of dominance not seen before or since.

The Artisan said:
the home consoles together sold a lot of units. I reckon a lot of people who owned Wii, also owned either a Ps3 or a 360 because of the 3rd party games the Wii didn't have. as a result, they all sold well even though the Wii was the undisputed king

A big factor is it was like it was a double generation. The Wii destroyed the competition in the first half, then dropped off after year 5 and the others took over. The generation was strung out longer than any other gen due to Nintendo floundering at the end, and MS/Sony essentially had a cold war, not launching a new gen as soon as would have been usual to try and recoup some of their massive losses early on.

shoptroll · Aug 12, 2018

Phantom Thief said:
Lowest selling Nintendo hardware: Wii U- 13.56 million (1.86%)

That's not right. There was the Virtu...

Phantom Thief said:
This list does not include Virtual Boy, NES Classic, and SNES Classic.

Oh.

:(

Deleted member 3017 · Aug 12, 2018

D.Lo said:
Yeah nah those figures make no sense and/or are too early to mean anything.

The NES sold ~33.5 million (from wiki, don't have better data right now) in North America, and sold at various prices from $200-90 over its lifespan. NES hardware sales alone would have been a billion a year some years, unadjusted for inflation. Game sales would have been multiples of that, and that's Nintendo alone.

The NES literally sold more than the PS4 has so far in America. PS4 will eventually pass it but not by any huge factor. In the meantime America has added 1/3 to its population.

The NES in NA was truly a phenomenon of dominance not seen before or since.

Yeah, I think when you talk NA specifically, there will never be another system with the reach the NES had. It was incredible.

Guaraná · Aug 12, 2018

OrbitalBeard said:
Yeah, I think when you talk NA specifically, there will never be another system with the reach the NES had. It was incredible.

even Wii ?

Deleted member 249 · Aug 12, 2018

*Guaraná said:
even Wii ?

Even Wii, yeah, didn't achieve the utter, absolute, total domination the NES did. There was a time when there were more NESs in American households than computers of any kind put together. That's how crazy it was.

potentialtodisplease · Aug 12, 2018

NeoZeedeater said:
I know it's caused from bias based on my region (NA) and my age but my brain will never comprehend the NES being so much lower in sales than some other Nintendo systems. It was in like a third of homes here (according to books) and it seemed much more of a phenomenon than the 3DS.

Agreed, I was just thinking how ubiquitous that console seemed to me as a kid. And only 60 million lol. Man, times have changed.

Deleted member 3017 · Aug 12, 2018

*Guaraná said:
even Wii ?

Culturally, yeah, I'd say so honestly. My parents still call video games "Nintendo", because that's how dominant the NES was in the 80's in the US.

D.Lo · Aug 12, 2018

*Guaraná said:
even Wii ?

Wii was ridiculously huge for 3-4 years, and indeed sold faster and vastly more than any other system ever has in a four year window. 4 million sold in a single month once. It's likely nothing will ever match that either.

But it wasn't alone in the market like the NES essentially was, even just the DS being there selling the same or more would dilute its impact compared to how crushing the NES was.

potentialtodisplease said:
Agreed, I was just thinking how ubiquitous that console seemed to me as a kid. And only 60 million lol. Man, times have changed.

You have to look at the regional breakdown. NES DID dominate America like nothing before or since, just not worldwide due to Nintendo not having moved into Europe yet. USA was more than half NES' worldwide sales, and the NES sold very little outside of USA/Japan.

jroc74 · Aug 12, 2018

The Switch at almost 20 million sold, I said damn.

Looking at the amount of home consoles vs handheld and the sales...yeah Nintendo, stick with the hybrid design.

I thought this was already known when the numbers were posted in the Sony thread. One thing you have to give Nintendo props for, they aren't shy about giving out sale numbers.

Cronogear · Aug 12, 2018

Switch is nearly over the Gamecube. Makes me sad. The Switch is a great system no doubt, but the Gamecube was legendary to me.

Celine · Aug 12, 2018

Nintendo crossed 700 million consoles sold back in March 2017.

Guaraná · Aug 12, 2018

Cronogear said:
Switch is nearly over the Gamecube. Makes me sad. The Switch is a great system no doubt, but the Gamecube was legendary to me.

GCN is Nintendo's Dreamcast: Everybody loves it now, but back then it was mocked as some kid toy, litlle purple jewellery box, etc

and it was seen as weaker than PS2 and Xbox, even though it was just as powerful as Microsoft's console and much stronger than the PlayStation 2.

But you know, perception is the only truth that matters and the rest is history.

Instro · Aug 12, 2018

I wonder how high GBA would have been had it not been killed off so early. Certainly at least their 2nd best selling hardware.

fiendcode · Aug 12, 2018

Deepthought_ said:
What?

Those are all post-PlayStation devices.

DriftingSpirit · Aug 12, 2018

On the road to 1B!

D.Lo · Aug 12, 2018

Celine said:
Nintendo crossed 700 million consoles sold back in March 2017.

Yeah this is really late. Clearly just a late reaction to the Sony 500 million PS1-4/PSP/Vita thing.

*Guaraná said:
GCN is Nintendo's Dreamcast: Everybody loves it now, but back then it was mocked as some kid toy, litlle purple jewellery box, etc

and it was seen as weaker than PS2 and Xbox, even though it was just as powerful as Microsoft's console and much stronger than the PlayStation 2.

But you know, perception is the only truth that matters and the rest is history.

Yep. Gamecube was also the cheapest, most reliable, quietest, smallest and had the highest in-game polygon counts of any console that generation in the Rogue Squadron games. But the PS2 had the hype and momentum and Microsoft spent billions pushing their PConsole.

Instro said:
I wonder how high GBA would have been had it not been killed off so early. Certainly at least their 2nd best selling hardware.

Always an interesting footnote that shows all else is never equal. GBA was cut down in its prime. It was clearly worth it in the end but makes its total look less impressive than it would havebeen otherwise.

I did wonder why Nintendo didn't give the DS one last push, they could easily have overtaken the PS2 if they'd wanted to and become the undisputed #1 of all time. But they're pretty ruthless in terms of profits and efficiency, they likely wanted all their channels filled with 3DS ASAP.

Trafalgar Law · Aug 12, 2018

Kingpin722 said:
The DS/Wii gen has to be the most successful gen ever. Insane amounts of hardware were moved

Yh ps2/PSP a great one too

Emilijo · Aug 12, 2018

PS1+PS2+PS3+PS4 = 420 million, average 105 million
NES+SNES+N64+NGC+Wii+WiiU+Switch = 300 million, average 42.8 million

Sony - king of home consoles
Nintendo - king of handhelds

Deleted member 2145 · Aug 12, 2018

that's a lot of hardware

people love them 'tendos

Deleted member 6573 · Aug 12, 2018

shark97 · Aug 12, 2018

NES — 61.91
SNES — 49.10
N64 — 32.93
GameCube — 21.74
Wii — 101.63
Wii U — 13.56
Switch — 19.67

Interesting that the Xbox 360 beat all but one of those.

I guess it show Nintendo has not had the best luck with home consoles though.

TheSpaceBetween · Aug 12, 2018

Very impressive. It's so sad such great consoles like the N64 and Gamecube did so poorly though. Even the Wii U deserved a better fate.

Lukas Taves · Aug 12, 2018

Phantom Thief said:
I think he's saying that if you take out systems that were sold contemporaneously to the PS1, but not part of the PS1 generation, the gap would be bigger than 229.7 million.

It's actually the other way around he is saying that these systems were contemporary to psone yes, but that means that the amount of consoles Nintendo sold prior to Sony entering the market is lower, which means that Nintendo has sold more units than Sony since Sony entered the market.

(Didn't checked the numbers just explaining his point)

rstzkpf · Aug 12, 2018

Wow I had no idea how much better the Wii did than all their other consoles.

Deleted member 27751 · Aug 12, 2018

Phantom Thief said:
Nintendo wants to sell 20 million more units from the ~18 million they were at at the end of March this year by April 2019.

*Guaraná said:
it's 20 million during the fiscal year alone.
and the fiscal year ends in March, 2019.

skittzo0413 said:
People aren't doubting that its lifetimes sales will reach 20M this year, rather they're doubting that they will sell an additional 20M this year, between this April and next April.

Right that makes more sense now haha. I'd still say that's a decent trajectory for April next year but we shall see. Pokemon and Smash alone are heavy hitters but I'm sure they've got more under their sleeve.

Thatguy · Aug 12, 2018

I don't understand why virtual boy isn't included here. This kind of stat tampering ruins the data sets integrity. Also, I don't care that people are buying Nintendo's lie that Switch is a console. Switch has a battery, a screen, it's underpowered, and the dock is nothing but power and an HDMI out. It's a portable, and needs to be compared to portables.

This OP smells like PR TBH.

Deleted member 249 · Aug 12, 2018

shark97 said:
NES — 61.91

SNES — 49.10

N64 — 32.93

GameCube — 21.74

Wii — 101.63

Wii U — 13.56

Switch — 19.67

Interesting that the Xbox 360 beat all but one of those.

I guess it show Nintendo has not had the best luck with home consoles though.

Account for the changing market size and reality too

Thatguy said:
I don't understand why virtual boy isn't included here. This kind of stat tampering ruins the data sets integrity. Also, I don't care that people are buying Nintendo's lie that Switch is a console. Switch has a battery, a screen, it's underpowered, and the dock is nothing but power and an HDMI out. It's a portable, and needs to be compared to portables.

This OP smells like PR TBH.

How- how does excluding numbers to make something look smaller make something look good? VB+NESC+SNESC add less than 10 million to the total, so they're not counted. Sony didn't count PSVR and PS Move in their totals- is that stat tampering too?

The OP is an article by a third party website. Nintendo themselves had nothing to do with it. Who is it PR for and by?

Handicapped Duck · Aug 12, 2018

Cronogear said:
Switch is nearly over the Gamecube. Makes me sad. The Switch is a great system no doubt, but the Gamecube was legendary to me.

Damn right. I might have been made fun of on the bus because I had bought a "purple lunch box", but that purple lunch box could survive dozens of 5+ foot drops with the game still running (mostly), our PS2 wouldn't be able to live through even one of the incidents our Gamecube went through.

hussien-11 · Aug 12, 2018

D.Lo said:
and the NES sold very little outside of USA/Japan

NES was incredibly popular even here in the Middle East, no one of my age didn't try Super Mario Bros or Duck Hunt. imagine that Captain Tsubasa game from Tecmo was actually translated to Arabic. it was very popular.
the thing though... I think the systems were actually clones... not official systems, because most of them had like, 20 or more games downloaded on the device..

9-Volt · Aug 12, 2018

Cronogear said:
Switch is nearly over the Gamecube. Makes me sad. The Switch is a great system no doubt, but the Gamecube was legendary to me.

Same here. Gamecube had the most hyped launches for me, I was even more hyped than I was for Switch or 3DS. I don't think any Nintendo launch replicate that feeling.

fiendcode · Aug 12, 2018

Lukas Taves said:
It's actually the other way around he is saying that these systems were contemporary to psone yes, but that means that the amount of consoles Nintendo sold prior to Sony entering the market is lower, which means that Nintendo has sold more units than Sony since Sony entered the market.

(Didn't checked the numbers just explaining his point)

Yes, this is it. I don't have the numbers handy but it's probably around 130-140m for pre-PlayStation hardware sales.

Handicapped Duck · Aug 12, 2018

I do find it mighty impressive that Sony has managed so well with just six console releases. Two of those have sold over 100 million, with Sony being able to hold the title of "most consoles sold ever" thanks to the PS2. The PS4 has the potential of being able to squeak by at the end of it's lifespan also, matching Nintendo's number of 100 million sellers. Though Nintendo's current total sales is nothing to sneeze at. Hoping the Switch can hold the mantle for reaching 100 million like the Gameboy, DS, and Wii.

Deleted member 6573 · Aug 12, 2018

Deleted member 249 · Aug 12, 2018

Aquamarine said:
Nintendo Investor Relations only counts the following consoles as a measure of their success:

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/finance/historical_data/xls/consolidated_sales_e1803.xlsx

NES
SNES
N64
GameCube
Wii
Wii U

Game Boy (including Color)
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo DS
Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo Switch

They don't directly track any of the other consoles in any public comparison.

I know this. I was specifically responding to the weird tangent of "tampered data" that Thatguy went off on because Virtual Boy, a system with less than a million units in hardware and software sales, was not counted here.

Deleted member 6573 · Aug 12, 2018

D.Lo · Aug 12, 2018

Aquamarine said:
The $750 million figure for 1987 was 100% correct. But the NES had a lifespan from 1985-1994 in the USA...that's a LONG time to sell. And in that time the market did indeed get larger.

The Vice President of Nintendo of America Peter Main reported that in 1990 (a year that Nintendo dominated the market) that Nintendo and third-party NES and Game Boy games generated approximately $3.4 billion at USA retail.

Adjusted for inflation that's $6.73 billion, which is still a good deal less than the $15 billion of USA sales reported in 2017 (and that $15 billion doesn't account for mobile or indie games). And this represents the peak...the market waned over the course of the 90's until the rise of Pokemon / PS1 / N64.

For all intents and purposes, it was still definitively smaller back in the day. In 1985 it was even as small as $100 million ($239 million adjusted for inflation).

You're really not following here.

Comparing $6.73 billion inflation adjusted for Nintendo alone in 1990 (which of course does not count outlets Nintendo was not involved in - like an ultra-healthy arcade scene with Street Fighter 2, and PC) to $15 billion today for all companies. In 1990 the USA population was 249.6 million. Now it's 327 million, that scales up to an equivalent of $8.8 billion for Nintendo alone (or scales down to an equivalent of 11.4 billion for today's industry population adjusted). Also your quote seems to say it was only games not hardware that generated that figure too? So even that is too low?

With arcades and PC, surely the 1990 market would have been at least near 10-15 billion in today's dollars.

Your original quote

Aquamarine said:
It's because the video game market was much, MUCH smaller back in the 1980's-1990's...it was a tiny fraction of today's size.

Sure... if you think the Nintendo-only sales of games only $6.73 billion is a 'tiny fraction' of $11.4 billion for all hardware and software by all companies, inflation and population adjusted...

Deleted member 249 · Aug 12, 2018

Aquamarine said:
That's a question to ask Nintendo, not you haha

I agree lol.
I just think adding it achieves nothing. it's not even statistical noise, it's irrelevant. I mean, you can argue it should be there for completion's sake, but I would argue far more relevant hardware lines, such as Color TV Game, Game and Watch, Wii Balance Board, Wii Motion Plus, and Super Gameboy, should be included before Virtual Boy.

nextJin · Aug 12, 2018

Phantom Thief said:
It will take like 20-25 years to get there.

Home console wise they overtook them awhile ago. What's fascinating is that other than the Wii, Nintendo continuously sold less hardware than the generation prior. Their mobile side of the business was much more sustainable. It's no wonder they were trying to merge the two with Wii U (take the success of Wii and add mobility), while it completely bombed it gave us the Switch.

I'd say Switch will sell 80 million EOL fairly easy. Possibly 100 million. I don't see it beating DS due to hardware costs.

D.Lo · Aug 12, 2018

Phantom Thief said:
I agree lol.
I just think adding it achieves nothing. it's not even statistical noise, it's irrelevant. I mean, you can argue it should be there for completion's sake, but I would argue far more relevant hardware lines, such as Color TV Game, Game and Watch, Wii Balance Board, Wii Motion Plus, and Super Gameboy, should be included before Virtual Boy.

What. No that makes no sense at all. Virtual Boy is a distinct standalone console that takes software carts. It's definitely the next most likely candidate to add to a consoles list. Pokemon Mini is next after that.

Color TV games were consoles, but did not have interchangeable software. Same with NES and SNES Mini. Game & Watch titles were like software/hardware combos. Super Game Boy did have a whole Game Boy in it, but was not standalone, and the others are pure peripherals, might as well count the Zapper as a console if the Motion plus counts.

Anyway it's really easy to add, and should be added. 770,000. Nintendo published figure. It just isn't included on their IR page because it was so low selling and short lived.

Pokemon Mini I have no idea though.

Nintendo Crosses 700 Million Units of Hardware Sold

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

"Angels are singing in monasteries..."

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

▲ Legend ▲

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

Self-Requested Ban

User-requested account closure

User requested account closure

▲ Legend ▲

▲ Legend ▲

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

User requested account closure