Summary
- The 2024 Switch sales have been falling faster than Nintendo anticipated.
- The company reduced its Switch sales forecast for FY 2025 from 12.5 million to 11 million.
- The Switch’s lifetime sales now sit at north of 150 million units.
The Switch sales have declined faster than Nintendo anticipated over the course of 2024. Nevertheless, the Switch could still seize the title of the best-selling console of all time.
Since its March 2017 release, Nintendo’s hybrid console has been going from strength to strength. Alongside a steady stream of critically acclaimed games, the Switch saw an additional boost during the 2020 pandemic, leading to an unusual situation where a four-year-old console went out of stock across many key markets. The global sales of the device have been on a small but steady decline from 2021 onward.
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This sales drop-off is now accelerating, as revealed by Nintendo’s consolidated financial report for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2025, i.e. the October–December 2024 period. As of the end of the reported quarter, the Switch’s lifetime sales sit at 150.86 million. The Switch was just shy of 139.4 million lifetime sales at the end of 2023, meaning it managed to move another 11.5 million units over the course of 2024. While that’s a respectable figure for a device pushing eight, the console’s sales are still falling faster than Nintendo anticipated. As a result, the company revised its FY 2025 Switch sales forecast from 12.5 million to 11 million units, a 12% decrease.
Top 5 Best-Selling Consoles of All Time
- PS2: 158 million
- DS: 154.02 million
- Switch: 150.86 million
- Game Boy (and GB Color): 118.69 million
- PS4: 117.2 million
Nintendo also revised its FY 2025 software sales forecast from 160 million to 150 million Switch games, a 6.25% reduction. The company is expected to share its sales guidance for the upcoming fiscal year in May 2025.
Nintendo Switch Global Sales by Calendar Year
|
Year |
Sales |
YoY Change |
Lifetime Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2017 |
14.86m |
N/A |
14.86m |
|
2018 |
17.41m |
+17.16% |
32.27m |
|
2019 |
20.21m |
+16.08% |
52.48m |
|
2020 |
27.39m |
+35.53% |
79.87m |
|
2021 |
23.67m |
-13.58% |
103.54m |
|
2022 |
19.01m |
-19.69% |
122.55m |
|
2023 |
16.81m |
-11.57% |
139.36m |
|
2024 |
11.5m |
-31.59% |
150.86m |
During an earnings call following the publication of the group’s latest financials, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed that the gaming giant isn’t planning on ending Switch support just yet, even though the console’s successor is already on the horizon, being slated to arrive sometime in 2025. The Switch could hence still feasibly become the best-selling console of all time, needing around 8 million more units to claim the title. While its sales have been in steady decline for years now, the arrival of the Switch 2 might lead to a permanent price drop for the original console, potentially revitalizing its commercial momentum.
One record that the Switch seems likely to seize by early 2026 is that of Nintendo’s best-selling console of all time. This title is currently held by the DS, but its lead over the Switch now sits at only 3.16 million units. As for the Switch 2, Nintendo’s second hybrid device isn’t expected to hit the market before June 2025.
Nintendo Switch OLED
$315 $349 Save
$34
- Dimensions
-
2.9 x 6.5 x 7.9 in
- Brand
-
Nintendo
- Weight
-
1 lb
- Chipset
-
NVIDIA Tegra
- Storage
-
64 GB
- Display
-
7.0 inch OLED screen