Nintendo sold 6.86 million Switch consoles last quarter, bringing lifetime sales to 68.3 million. That’s a 43 percent increase on the 4.8 million systems that were sold during the same period last year. We already knew that the Switch had outsold the mighty NES, thanks to some hardware sales published in Famitsu a few months ago. The milestone is now official, though — at least from a quarterly earnings perspective — and we now have a better idea of how the console is faring throughout the pandemic. (Very, very well.) The next system in the Switch’s crosshairs is the 3DS and 2DS family, which currently stands at 75.94 million lifetime sales.
For now, the classic Switch is more popular than the handheld-only Switch Lite. Nintendo sold 5.31 million of the former and 1.55 million of the latter during the three-month period. Clearly, most people prefer the Switch’s versatility — you know, the ability to ’switch’ between handheld, tabletop and TV modes — and don’t mind paying extra for it. That makes total sense given how little people are travelling and, by extension, the amount of time they’re spending in their living rooms at the moment.
