By selling 10.6 million consoles between October and December 2021, the Switch now contemplates a mountain of 103.5 million machines distributed worldwide, including 81.6 million for the classic model, 17.8 million for the Switch Lite and 4 million for the Switch OLED. Geographically, the machine has crossed the 40 million mark on the American continent, while Japan (24.3 million) is on the heels of Europe (26.9 million). Nintendo has also confirmed that the Switch has passed the 100 million consoles sold to consumers mark to date and its data shows 98 million active Switch players for the year 2021 (80 million in 2020).
Before even celebrating its 5th anniversary, the Switch thus passed the Wii (101.6 million) and the PlayStation (102.4 million) to take its place in the top 5 of the most popular consoles in history. His next target? The PlayStation 4, whose current total (116.8 million) is not far from final. Needless to say, the Switch crossed the 100 million mark faster than all the consoles mentioned above and only the Nintendo DS can boast of having been faster.
In 2021, Nintendo therefore sold a total of 23.6 million Switches (down 14%) compared to 12.8 million for a PS5 hampered by its production capacity far from meeting demand. The Switch had its second-best year in terms of consoles sold and its best year in terms of games sold.
Without reproducing the extraordinary figures of the previous financial year, Nintendo’s results remain stratospheric with, for the period April-December 2021, a turnover of 10.2 billion euros and above all an operating profit of 3.6 billion euros. euros with a net profit of 2.8 billion euros. In other words, Nintendo has no not the biggest turnover in the sector, but no one can come after the small craftsman in terms of profitability.
Nintendo has also raised its objectives for the entire fiscal year and now expects a turnover of 12.7 billion euros, an operating profit of 4.3 billion euros and a net profit of 3 billion euros for the financial year ended March 31, 2022. However, the manufacturer plans to distribute fewer Switches over the whole of the financial year, namely 23 million against 24 million for its previous objective. What remains monumental. In addition, Nintendo intends to sell more games than previously expected (220 million instead of 200 million).
Still colossal game sales
Let’s talk games, precisely. By selling a record 85 million titles in the last quarter of 2021, Nintendo has now distributed 766.4 million Switch games worldwide, double the Nintendo 3DS (388 million games for 75.9 million portable consoles) .
While waiting for the first figures of Pokémon Legends: Arceus which already promise to be spectacular, it is obviously the Pokémon Sparkling Diamond & Pokémon Sparkling Pearl tandem which makes a sensational entry into the top 10 of the machine’s biggest successes with 14.33 million copies distributed, ejecting in passing the innocent Splatoon 2 which was also overtaken by Ring Fit Adventure. The Pokémon duo sign the 3rd best start of the franchise and will very quickly pass Pokémon Omega Ruby & Pokémon Alpha Sapphire to become the king of remakes.
The other releases of the last quarter have nothing to be ashamed of either. With its 2.74 million copies distributed worldwide, Metroid Dread is just a stone’s throw from knocking down Metroid Prime to effortlessly establish itself at the top of the franchise’s sales charts. The nostalgic best of Mario Party Superstars menu proposal also convinced with 5.43 million copies distributed, which is slightly better than the start of Super Mario Party (whose total is now 17.39 million).
A word also on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which continues to sell in autopilot mode in the same proportions as the Switch itself and reaches 43.35 million (more than 50 million if we add the sales of the Wii U game). Unless you count Wii Sports which came with the Wii, it’s now official: no Nintendo game in history does better than the go-kart game.
Other statistics for the period April-December 2021
- Nintendo games account for 77.7% of Switch game sales
- 40.2% of Switch game sales were downloads