It may cost over R5 000, it may only have a handful of launch titles and there are issues with its controllers, but none of that has stopped the Nintendo Switch landing with a splash.
The Nintendo Switch has become the fastest-selling console in the company’s history – well, in the United States at any rate. This information comes to us courtesy of a series of tweets from New York Times reporter, Nick Wingfield, who interviewed Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime.
1. Update on Nintendo Switch sales I'll break into a multi-tweet. This from an intvw with Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of Amer. Pres
— Nick Wingfield (@nickwingfield) March 6, 2017
Furthermore, The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild – which if you’ve been paying attention is racking up favourable reviews across the board – has become the fastest selling game in Nintendo’s history (that wasn’t sold as part of a console bundle.
4. Zelda for Nintendo Switch the best selling standalone launch title (i.e. not a bundled game a la Wii Sports) in Nintendo history…
— Nick Wingfield (@nickwingfield) March 6, 2017
There’s no hard data on exactly how many Switch consoles have been sold at this time. We also don’t know whether these figures refer to units sold at retail or units that have simply been shipped to retail. That having been said, it’s all pretty good news for Nintendo, especially since this console is launching in March, rather than around October/November, which is when most people justify blowing a large chunk of change on a new shiny toy for Christmas.
We also have no way of knowing – yet – how the console is doing locally. Judging by the hype surrounding it and the fact that, ya know, it’s a lot of fun to play with, one could expect it to do well.
But it’s early days yet and whether it manages to match the success of the Wii, which sold 600 000 units in the first eight days and then went on to sell 100 million during its life cycle, remains to be seen.