Nintendo just released it's latest financial report, updating the sales numbers for its consoles and some of its Switch games, and there's some real interesting stuff in there. Let's take a look at how Team Red is doing!

Nintendo Switch Hardware

Nintendo's plan to go with a hybrid console this generation seems to be paying off big time. The Switch has sold 129.53 million units worldwide, making it the best-selling home Nintendo console ever, the second when it comes to handheld, and the third overall.

This dethrones the the now-4th spot, Nintendo's own Gameboy, which sold 118.56 million units. However, that also includes the Gameboy Color, and we sadly don't have numbers for each individually. If we take that out of the equation, the next best-selling console is the PlayStation 4 at 117.2 million units sold. It's still being sold in stores, too, so there's a slim chance it'll dethrone the Gameboy.

As for the top two best seller, there's a chance the Switch will dethrone them. Number two goes to Nintendo again with the DS (which had a number of revisions, not counting the 3DS consoles) at 154.02 million, while the crown belongs to the PlayStation 2 at over 155 millions (no exact numbers). The Switch would need to sell another 25 million units to surpass them, which is possible, depending on when and how its successor presents itself.


Top 10 best selling consoles
*It's unclear if the PSP outsold the GBA, as the former is cited at 80-82 mil units, while the latter sits at 81.51 mil 

Note: Numbers for non-Nintendo consoles pulled from Wikipedia.

Nintendo Switch Software

Moving on to the games, the report tells us that the Switch has had 1.088 BILLION units sold. We don't have exact data on this (or whether this includes free games and apps like YouTube), but that would mean that, for every Switch sold, they also sold about 8 games. That might not seem like a lot, but it's actually the most games a Nintendo console has sold to date.

In terms of specific games, the best-selling title on the console is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at 55.46 million units, followed by Animal Crossing: New Horizons at 42.79, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at 31.77, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at 30.65, and Super Mario Odyssey at 26.44 million.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's number account for about 43% of the console's player base, which is a pretty big amount. It is by far the best selling Mario Kart game out there, beating Mario Kart Wii, the second best seller at 37.38 million, by about 67%. For comparison, that game only accounts for about 35% of the Wii's (101.63 million units) player base.

Ironically, the Wii U version of Kart 8 only sold 8.46 million units, the second worst home-console performer after Double Dash (8.46 mil). Only Home Circuit, an expensive version with an actual toy kart, and Super Circuit, a GBA title, performed worse than those two. Granted, Kart 8 was on a console that itself only had 13.56 million sales (62% of the player base, for what it worth).


Mario Kart sales, excluding Tour (mobile game, no numbers)

The real impressive numbers, however, belong to Tears of the Kingdom. At 18.51 million sales, it's the 9th best selling game on the Switch. That might not sound impressive, but keep in mind the game was released in May this year. It managed to pull in 4 months about 60% of the sales Breath of the Wild managed to do in 6 years. That's really impressive!

In fact, it's the second best-selling game by a wide margin. If you include remakes, Ocarina of Time is third with 10 million units sold between the N64 and the 3DS. If you do not, that honor belongs to Twilight Princess at 8.85 million copies on Gamecube. 

While it doesn't crack the top 10, Link's Awakening on the Switch sold better than both the Gameboy and Gameboy Color version combined, and Twilight Princess HD outsold the Wii version by about 300k copies. This proves that Nintendo is leaving A LOT of money on the table by not porting their older games on their latest console. Hell, they already have Twilight Princess HD and Wind Waker HD for the Wii U, and the Switch can run Wii U games easily, so where are they?!


Mainline Zelda games, includes remakes

If you're wondering where Pokemon is, there's 2 (or 4) or them right below Odyssey. Sword/Shield is the 6th best seller on the platform at 25.92 million units, followed by Scarlet/Violet in 7th at 22.66. This might not seem like great numbers, but they're the 2nd and 4th best selling Pokemon games, beaten by Red/Green/Blue in 1st (31.05 mil) and Gold/Silver in 3rd (23.73 mil). If you consider "upper" versions of those games as well, Sword/Shield drops in 3rd and Scarlet/Violet goes to 7th.


Pokemon sales, includes "upper" versions of games, doesn't include remakes

Note: Numbers for non-top 10 Pokemon, Mario Kart, and Zelda games were pulled from the Video Games Sales Wiki. The numbers in the graphs are a bit outdated, but they don't affect the ranking (aside from Tears of the Kingdom, which uses up-o-date values).

Rounding up the top 10 best selling Switch games, we have Super Mario Party in 8th place at 19.39 million units, and Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe in 10th at 16.17 million units. All in all, a pretty varied top 10, with Mario dominating the list, games from throughout the entire life-span of the console, and some titles that got a new lease on life after being released on the not-so-successful Wii U.