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The best sellers
The Nintendo Switch has been and continues to be a runaway success for Nintendo. It’s sold more than 139 million units and is closing in on the PS2’s record for all-time console sales (152 million). But how does the Switch compare to all of Nintendo’s previous hardware releases in terms of hardware and game sales?
As you’ll see, the Switch is far and away Nintendo’s best-selling home console of all time, but the Nintendo DS outranks it with more than 150 million units sold when combining all of its many permutations. On the other end of the scale, the Wii U is Nintendo’s worst-performing system of any type ever (besides the Virtual Boy), selling just 13.56 million units and shifting just north of 100 million games over its lifetime.
Nintendo seemingly wants to forget the Virtual Boy, as the 1995 machine is not mentioned anywhere on Nintendo’s website. It’s safe to assume that it did not sell very well.
Another notable stat is that the Switch is Nintendo’s first console to ever sell more than 1 billion games, and it currently stands at just over 1.2 billion total. The next closest is the Nintendo DS platform (948.76 million games).
Looking ahead, Nintendo is reportedly gearing up to announce its next console, colloquially called Nintendo Switch 2, and it will surely have big shoes to fill given the enormous success of the Switch. The latest rumor is that Nintendo’s next console has slipped to 2025. Nothing is official as of yet, however. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest Nintendo news.
