Nintendo has announced that it sold 235 million games for Switch in financial year 2021 – the highest number sold in a single year in the company’s history.
In its Financial Year 2021 earnings report, the company explained that software sales – both for first-party and third-party games – rose by 1.8% year-on-year to 235.07 million units. Nintendo says this is “the highest annual software sales figure ever posted for a Nintendo platform to date.”
Switch hardware itself didn’t fare quite as well by the incredibly successful console’s high standards. Between them, the three Switch models sold 23 million units in FY 2021. While this is a huge number (by comparison, PS5 sold 11.5 million in the same period), it’s a 20% drop on FY 2020.
Nintendo seemingly puts the drop down to two factors: shortages of semiconductor components, and the lack of a game that drives hardware sales, in the way that Animal Crossing: New Horizons did for Switch in 2020.
Pokémon was a huge winner for Nintendo in the last year, with Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl selling 14.65 million, and Legends: Arceus reaching 12.64 million. Mario Party Superstars hit 6.88 million, and Zelda: Skyward Sword HD hit 3.91 million. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continued its cominance as the Switch’s biggest game, selling almost 10 million units almost 5 years after launch, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons added 6 million to its total.
Nintendo Switch has now sits at 107.65 million units sold in total (with 822.18 million game units). It trails only the Game Boy (118.69 million) and Nintendo DS (154.02 million) as Nintendo’s most successful games console of all time.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.