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Nintendo software and hardware sales data from 1983 to present
- Thread starter Celine
- Start date
Yeah, people tend to write off Mario kart because of how absurdly well the Wii one sold, and assume nothing can touch it - but looking at the trends over time, it actually has a shot.
Switch is a monster with software.
Agreed on MK8D.
NSW & Evergreens Quarterly Shipments
NSW & Evergreens Quarterly Shipments
BOTW (NSW) has sold more in calendar 2018/19 than in 2017. Impressive longevity - should be >16M by the end of the calendar year (Q2 1M / Q3 1.5M) and ~17M by end of FY (Q4 >1M). 20M on Switch alone looks on target by holiday 2020 (presumably when BOTW releases). Combined with the Wii U version, it has outsold all 3D Mario games and is only behind the combined total of SM64 + SM64DS (~23M), which it may approach in the end.
MK8D despite a slower start than MKWii is out-legging it (easy to compare launch-aligned as they both released in April). In its 9th quarter, MK8D shipped 1,200,000. Don't have 9th quarter figures for MKWii, but Quarter 9&10 combined it shipped 1,451,000 - MK8D might end up doubling that once we get Q2 results for this year. Quarter 7/8 for MKWii (Oct 09 - Mar 10) saw MKWii ship 4,190,000 compared to 4,980,000 for MK8D (Oct 18 - Mar 19). With Switch Lite around the corner, it does not look like momentum is going to stop for MK8D so it should continue to outperform MKWii on a quarterly shipment basis. It will cruise past 20M by the start of the holidays (maybe sooner with Switch Lite) and will be in the 30M ballpark by holiday 2020. Oh and it also sold 8.4M on the Wii U.
EDIT: MKWii's obvious advantage was its larger opening. It launched in the Wii's 18th month on the market and moved massive units in 2008 alone. MK8D launched in NSW's 2nd month on the market so initial sales of course had to be lower but its holding much better 2 years after launch in both absolute and relative terms.
Splatoon 2 will make its way to 10M sometime next year methinks. SMP will pick up huge during the holidays though presumably it won't see the same boost from Switch Lite as other titles due to the Joy-con problem.
Smash still chugging along - quarterly shipments are a bit low IMO probably due to the massive Q3 shipment. It'll pick back up in a huge way once Switch Lite gets out there - Smash 4 3DS was huge. I think it'll be peeking at 20M by the end of the calendar year.
Too little info for SMM2 - next few quarters will tell us where its headed.
Expect (sub) franchise-best openings and LTDs for FE/LA/LM3, but Pokemon will wipe out everything in like the last ~45 days of the year and be the biggest single-quarter shipment for a Switch title thus far (Smash at 12.08M).
MK8D despite a slower start than MKWii is out-legging it (easy to compare launch-aligned as they both released in April). In its 9th quarter, MK8D shipped 1,200,000. Don't have 9th quarter figures for MKWii, but Quarter 9&10 combined it shipped 1,451,000 - MK8D might end up doubling that once we get Q2 results for this year. Quarter 7/8 for MKWii (Oct 09 - Mar 10) saw MKWii ship 4,190,000 compared to 4,980,000 for MK8D (Oct 18 - Mar 19). With Switch Lite around the corner, it does not look like momentum is going to stop for MK8D so it should continue to outperform MKWii on a quarterly shipment basis. It will cruise past 20M by the start of the holidays (maybe sooner with Switch Lite) and will be in the 30M ballpark by holiday 2020. Oh and it also sold 8.4M on the Wii U.
EDIT: MKWii's obvious advantage was its larger opening. It launched in the Wii's 18th month on the market and moved massive units in 2008 alone. MK8D launched in NSW's 2nd month on the market so initial sales of course had to be lower but its holding much better 2 years after launch in both absolute and relative terms.
Splatoon 2 will make its way to 10M sometime next year methinks. SMP will pick up huge during the holidays though presumably it won't see the same boost from Switch Lite as other titles due to the Joy-con problem.
Smash still chugging along - quarterly shipments are a bit low IMO probably due to the massive Q3 shipment. It'll pick back up in a huge way once Switch Lite gets out there - Smash 4 3DS was huge. I think it'll be peeking at 20M by the end of the calendar year.
Too little info for SMM2 - next few quarters will tell us where its headed.
Expect (sub) franchise-best openings and LTDs for FE/LA/LM3, but Pokemon will wipe out everything in like the last ~45 days of the year and be the biggest single-quarter shipment for a Switch title thus far (Smash at 12.08M).
Nothing has really changed besides the addition of Super Mario Maker 2. October should be more interesting with the releases of the Switch Lite, FE3H, Awakening and some updated numbers for MK8, Ultimate and SMM2.
Updated as of July 2019.
TOP 3 GAMES PER CONSOLE
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Wii Sports had to be split in half since it was skewing the graph too much.
TOP3 GAMES PER FRANCHISE
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
2D MARIO SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
3D MARIO SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
ANIMAL CROSSING SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console
DONKEY KONG SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
FIRE EMBLEM SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
Only includes Western released titles
F-ZERO SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
**F-Zero GX info source
KIRBY SALES
Blue = Handheld Console; Yellow = Home Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
LUIGI'S MANSION SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
MARIO KART SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
MARIO PARTY SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
*Super Mario Party also lacks official sales numbers
MARIO RPG SALES
Blue = Paper Mario ; Yellow = Mario & Luigi
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
MARIO TENNIS SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
METROID SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
PIKMIN SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
POKEMON SALES
Blue = Original Version ; Yellow = Third Version ; Green = Remake
SMASH BROS SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
SPLATOON & ARMS SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
*ARMS should be Green
STAR FOX SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
WARIO SALES
Blue = Wario Land ; Yellow = Wario Ware
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
YOSHI SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
ZELDA SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
Titles marked with * lack official sales numbers
NINTENDO HARDWARE SALES
Blue = Home Console ; Yellow = Handheld Console ; Green = Hybrid Console
All graphs based on OP.
Thanks.
Agreed on MK8D.
NSW & Evergreens Quarterly Shipments
BOTW (NSW) has sold more in calendar 2018/19 than in 2017. Impressive longevity - should be >16M by the end of the calendar year (Q2 1M / Q3 1.5M) and ~17M by end of FY (Q4 >1M). 20M on Switch alone looks on target by holiday 2020 (presumably when BOTW releases). Combined with the Wii U version, it has outsold all 3D Mario games and is only behind the combined total of SM64 + SM64DS (~23M), which it may approach in the end.
MK8D despite a slower start than MKWii is out-legging it (easy to compare launch-aligned as they both released in April). In its 9th quarter, MK8D shipped 1,200,000. Don't have 9th quarter figures for MKWii, but Quarter 9&10 combined it shipped 1,451,000 - MK8D might end up doubling that once we get Q2 results for this year. Quarter 7/8 for MKWii (Oct 09 - Mar 10) saw MKWii ship 4,190,000 compared to 4,980,000 for MK8D (Oct 18 - Mar 19). With Switch Lite around the corner, it does not look like momentum is going to stop for MK8D so it should continue to outperform MKWii on a quarterly shipment basis. It will cruise past 20M by the start of the holidays (maybe sooner with Switch Lite) and will be in the 30M ballpark by holiday 2020. Oh and it also sold 8.4M on the Wii U.
EDIT: MKWii's obvious advantage was its larger opening. It launched in the Wii's 18th month on the market and moved massive units in 2008 alone. MK8D launched in NSW's 2nd month on the market so initial sales of course had to be lower but its holding much better 2 years after launch in both absolute and relative terms.
Splatoon 2 will make its way to 10M sometime next year methinks. SMP will pick up huge during the holidays though presumably it won't see the same boost from Switch Lite as other titles due to the Joy-con problem.
Smash still chugging along - quarterly shipments are a bit low IMO probably due to the massive Q3 shipment. It'll pick back up in a huge way once Switch Lite gets out there - Smash 4 3DS was huge. I think it'll be peeking at 20M by the end of the calendar year.
Too little info for SMM2 - next few quarters will tell us where its headed.
Expect (sub) franchise-best openings and LTDs for FE/LA/LM3, but Pokemon will wipe out everything in like the last ~45 days of the year and be the biggest single-quarter shipment for a Switch title thus far (Smash at 12.08M).
Thank you for providing this. My only suggestion would be maybe changing the attach rate columns (which don't mean much unless you are looking at the Total) for YTD numbers (so we could have a better idea on the legs of the games). This might highlight other interesting trends, such as your BotW observation.
From this list of games I expect Mario Tennis Aces and Pokemon Let's Go to be replaced with some of the new releases. Pokemon should be dwarfed once Sword & Shield and I think the shipment numbers will drop significantly when it does. Aces is obviously a tier below Party and Kart and probably won't have such long legs.
I'm still a bit surprised about the legs on Mario Odyssey being a step lower than Zelda. Equally curious abot SMM2 though, I expect it to reach 15m+ comfortably but time will tell.
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I expect NSMBUDX to end up > 10M.
It's an unassuming game but the appeal of sidescrolling Super Mario Bros to the casuals shouldn't be underestimated.
With the coming hardware boost in the next two quarters and holiday season NSMBUDX will enjoy a nice jump in sales.
In general it will enjoy prolonged sales over the whole Switch life cycle (and will eventually be bundled).
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Oh and for those that enjoy some little milestones:
3DS this past quarter overtake the total software sales of the SNES while it had done the same not long ago compared to the GBA.
Now 3DS total software sales are the 5th best behind (in order) DS, Wii, Game Boy, NES.
The analysis on the first-party sales are, as always useful, to understand how such sales were obtained.
On 3DS first-party software accounted for about 51% of the total software sales.
On SNES first-party software accounted for about 24% of the total software sales.
On GBA first-party software accounted for about 24% of the total software sales.
In a way one could say that GBA and SNES were "black sheep" consoles for a first-party driven console manufacturer like Nintendo.
In actuality the reasoning is more complex and especially the SNES was an important step because it is where Nintendo started to cement their software philosophy which is a fundamental pillar of their business strategy.
3DS this past quarter overtake the total software sales of the SNES while it had done the same not long ago compared to the GBA.
Now 3DS total software sales are the 5th best behind (in order) DS, Wii, Game Boy, NES.
The analysis on the first-party sales are, as always useful, to understand how such sales were obtained.
On 3DS first-party software accounted for about 51% of the total software sales.
On SNES first-party software accounted for about 24% of the total software sales.
On GBA first-party software accounted for about 24% of the total software sales.
In a way one could say that GBA and SNES were "black sheep" consoles for a first-party driven console manufacturer like Nintendo.
In actuality the reasoning is more complex and especially the SNES was an important step because it is where Nintendo started to cement their software philosophy which is a fundamental pillar of their business strategy.
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Haha I know :)) Thank you for all of this by the way!
right??? I was really holding out for info on it in hopes it did well, but we know nothing.
it did well, do have the regional sales numbers that imply enough to know that. (did very well in Spain)
Looking at the updated list on the OP, switch looks... kinda bad in certain ways??
.- low-ish tie ratio, meaning people not buying a ton of software
.- super high 1st party SW/HW ratio, meaning people don't care much for games not made by nintendo
or am I reading this wrong?
.- low-ish tie ratio, meaning people not buying a ton of software
.- super high 1st party SW/HW ratio, meaning people don't care much for games not made by nintendo
or am I reading this wrong?
The Switch is a new platform, it has a great tie ratio for a console this new. The majority of Switches are less than a year old, people have not had enough time to buy lots of games. Tie ratios grow over the life of a platform, and very fast selling platforms have the tie ratio temporarily suppressed by there being so many new owners.
As for the first party ratio, it's basically because third parties have only released second tier stuff on the platform. Mortal Kombat was the first ever day and date feature complete major third party game. What's the biggest exclusive? Octopath maybe? Otherwise it's treated a late port machine at best.
The tie ratio increases greatly over a console's lifetime. So you're comparing an early tie ratio to final ones from other consoles.
FP ratio is always high, but Nintendo's Switch games overperforming on Switch isn't a bad thing, that doesn't mean third parties are selling poorly at all. Also the total software sales numbers do not include digital only titles, which are almost exclusively third party.
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Tie ratio of active consoles grow with time (NSW final tie ratio will be far above 5.70).
Nintendo is in the unique position of being the only first-party driven console maker in the market.
High first-party software sales compared the total software sales on Nintendo consoles were always the norm (almost always > 30%).
In recent years this percentage shot up because of the consolidation in the industry:
Big publishers release a small number of big production games that sell a lot and target only higher spec consoles (PS, XBox) meanwhile smaller scale games were sized up by indie publishers/developers and are finding great success on Switch.
However digital only games aren't counted in the total software sales statistic.
Switch isn't performing like an handheld console.
For instance the above mentioned tie ratio is a clue.
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All I could find is this thread for SR:
Where it did 7.2k. I think that's just kind of okay, though I don't know how past Metroid titles did in Spain, and the 3ds was well into decline. I don't really know how to extrapolate from that.
There may be other numbers I missed though.
Here's some more data plus context for ya.
While we don't have any all-encompassing total, MSR did well all things considered.
I think it was the necessary hardware iteration - and failure - needed to make the Switch as successful as it was. Most people's favorite Wii U feature was off-TV play. Nintendo ran with that and it has worked out extremely well.
Man it really highlights what an abject failure Skyward Sword was. Main installment in Nintendo's second biggest franchise, critically acclaimed, and couldn't even crack 4 million sales on a platform that had over 100 million install base at that point. Twilight Princess sold twice as much as a launch game.
Yeah, that's kind of my suspicion as well. On the face of it, Wii U would look to have been a total failure, but from the very outset I had this feeling that it was a temporary thing Nintendo threw out there to satiate its fanbase until they were done with the next actual console iteration.
Wow, thanks a ton for all those links!
So the game did do pretty well in the places we know of, huh. Did pretty good on US and (surprisingly) japan, and Ok in most European charts. That last link puts it well; it didn't break any records for the series by any means, but nonetheless proved to be a modestly successful title. I do wonder just how close it got to 1 million.
The switch will easily obliterate the highest Nintendo tie ratio. Unfortunately we will never get the true tie ratio because digital only and free to play games are not counted. Now some of those games people obviously never spend money on for F2P and many of the download only games are sub $1 but I imagine that easily have 100 million+ if you combine the F2P and all the digital only titles. Nintendo showed a graph of the average amount of money spent per switch on games and I think it was like 20-30% higher than previous consoles for Nintendo so they are definitely in a good spot
It was also released in Q4 2011 - which was when many consumers long aborted support for the system.
It makes the frequent downplaying of the Wii (it was bought by Grandmas who only played Wii Sports / owners played Wii Fit for a few weeks and then the Wii gathered dust) even more absurd when you look at the actual figures.
We'll never know... but I think even if the Wii U had been a massive success worldwide that the Switch would have still released exactly as it is today.
Agreed on MK8D.
NSW & Evergreens Quarterly Shipments
BOTW (NSW) has sold more in calendar 2018/19 than in 2017. Impressive longevity - should be >16M by the end of the calendar year (Q2 1M / Q3 1.5M) and ~17M by end of FY (Q4 >1M). 20M on Switch alone looks on target by holiday 2020 (presumably when BOTW releases). Combined with the Wii U version, it has outsold all 3D Mario games and is only behind the combined total of SM64 + SM64DS (~23M), which it may approach in the end.
MK8D despite a slower start than MKWii is out-legging it (easy to compare launch-aligned as they both released in April). In its 9th quarter, MK8D shipped 1,200,000. Don't have 9th quarter figures for MKWii, but Quarter 9&10 combined it shipped 1,451,000 - MK8D might end up doubling that once we get Q2 results for this year. Quarter 7/8 for MKWii (Oct 09 - Mar 10) saw MKWii ship 4,190,000 compared to 4,980,000 for MK8D (Oct 18 - Mar 19). With Switch Lite around the corner, it does not look like momentum is going to stop for MK8D so it should continue to outperform MKWii on a quarterly shipment basis. It will cruise past 20M by the start of the holidays (maybe sooner with Switch Lite) and will be in the 30M ballpark by holiday 2020. Oh and it also sold 8.4M on the Wii U.
EDIT: MKWii's obvious advantage was its larger opening. It launched in the Wii's 18th month on the market and moved massive units in 2008 alone. MK8D launched in NSW's 2nd month on the market so initial sales of course had to be lower but its holding much better 2 years after launch in both absolute and relative terms.
Splatoon 2 will make its way to 10M sometime next year methinks. SMP will pick up huge during the holidays though presumably it won't see the same boost from Switch Lite as other titles due to the Joy-con problem.
Smash still chugging along - quarterly shipments are a bit low IMO probably due to the massive Q3 shipment. It'll pick back up in a huge way once Switch Lite gets out there - Smash 4 3DS was huge. I think it'll be peeking at 20M by the end of the calendar year.
Too little info for SMM2 - next few quarters will tell us where its headed.
Expect (sub) franchise-best openings and LTDs for FE/LA/LM3, but Pokemon will wipe out everything in like the last ~45 days of the year and be the biggest single-quarter shipment for a Switch title thus far (Smash at 12.08M).
Few more observations.
MK8D Japan shipments YoY are flat - so its up 7% everywhere else. We don't have shipment figures for BOTW, but we know retail sales are down YoY from Q1 last year in JP (Per Famitsu: FY18 Q1 - 150K vs. FY19 Q1 - 73K) so shipped to Americas/Europe/ROTW are likely also up from last year (possibly more than MK8D's 7%). Good sign for both going into a period where a lot of HW is going to be moved. Should be interesting to note how the attach rates hold up (accounting for expected ageing/decay) once the Lite model becomes available.
Yeah, had NSMBUD on there but forgot to unhide it. Will get hide of MTA and others as time goes on.
Always frustrating when press/media discusses the commercial successes and failures on fan hot-take levels instead of actually looking at numbers like these or looking them up at official sources. I'm always surprised when I listen to podcasts and one of the hosts actually happens to know for example that Luigi's Mansion 2 wasn't a below the radar/nobody bought it release but actually a heavy weight long-term seller. That's on a similar level to Wii's surprisingly high software attach rate when everyone only bought Mario Kart and NSMB and spend the rest of their days bowling and playing Guitar Hero/Carnival Games. Among other things. Not that hard. :)
Did we ever get shipment numbers or PR for any of the following Switch titles:
Fire Emblem Warriors:
Hyrule Warriors:
Labo 02
Sushi Strikers
Labo 03
XC2:Torna
Labo 04
I remember Tecmo announced in april 2018 they shipped 1M units of FEW but that was for both NSW and 3DS. I also remember that Labo 01 and Labo 02 Had a million sales between them at some point.
Fire Emblem Warriors:
Hyrule Warriors:
Labo 02
Sushi Strikers
Labo 03
XC2:Torna
Labo 04
I remember Tecmo announced in april 2018 they shipped 1M units of FEW but that was for both NSW and 3DS. I also remember that Labo 01 and Labo 02 Had a million sales between them at some point.
No numbers. Sushi Strikers obviously bombed incredibly hard. Torna outdid their expectations, just like Xeno2 main. https://www.usgamer.net/articles/xe...apan-far-exceeded-monolith-softs-expectations
Yeah SS got it's price slashed to a third of it's price quickly here in Europe. I read that article, so happy it performed well. Would love another XC game.. soon-ish.
I bought a second copy to have 3DS version because it was down to 10€ all over the place. Cool for me, bad for the game. :( Sush Striker is so good.
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Reminds me of getting Codename Steam and Rhythm Paradise for £4.99 and Metroid Other M for £2.99 ☹
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As a heads-up (since the thread was bumped anyway) the data in OP will be updated in a few hours.
Sorry, I don't have yearly shipment data for Game & Watch series.
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I've updated the data in the OP for the 3DS, WiiU and NSW games as December 2018 for those games who had an earlier update date.
Basically lower selling 3DS million sellers, lower selling WiiU million sellers (just a few 1Ks cause it's dead as a platform) and ARMS on Switch.
Yo-Kai Watch 1 and 2 have shipped more than 1M units outside Japan (Nintendo was the publisher outside Japan).
Big thanks to hiska-kun
Basically lower selling 3DS million sellers, lower selling WiiU million sellers (just a few 1Ks cause it's dead as a platform) and ARMS on Switch.
Yo-Kai Watch 1 and 2 have shipped more than 1M units outside Japan (Nintendo was the publisher outside Japan).
Big thanks to hiska-kun
Is Twilight Princess HD new in the list? I don't remember it being there. Whether I forgot it being there already or not, nice to know it did also ship a million and isn't that far off from WWHD.
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No, it was already a million seller as December 2017 (it shipped 1K additional units in the last year if memory serves me right).
