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Sales Data Switch hits 114.33 million shipped, updated software numbers

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Considering
  • 10 times the install base XC2 had at its launch
  • After 5 years of positive online reaction to XC2
  • Smash's huge numbers providing constant advertising for the series
  • Critical acclaim for the game itself...
...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.

When you then see a fairly low-effort game like Switch Sports shitting out 6m sales without issue, it becomes more so.

Monolith are one of Nintendo's very top teams. It's clear an absolutely enormous amount of dev work went into XC3. So, if this is the best Xenoblade can do in the very best sales environment the series will ever see, then do you think about having them do something else? Opportunity cost is real. As much as I love the Xeno series, I'd certainly consider it if I was Nintendo.

Other thoughts:
Delighted that Arceus has sold so strongly. To do those numbers without ever having a holiday season to itself is truly insane.
Delighted Mario Strikers Battle League is a flop. You put Mario and football together - two universally beloved things - and you get only 2m from a 115m install base. Pathetic flop, and well deserved. Put some effort into your sports games, Nintendo.
 
Considering
  • 10 times the install base XC2 had at its launch
  • After 5 years of positive online reaction to XC2
  • Smash's huge numbers providing constant advertising for the series
  • Critical acclaim for the game itself...
...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.

When you then see a fairly low-effort game like Switch Sports shitting out 6m sales without issue, it becomes more so.

Monolith are one of Nintendo's very top teams. It's clear an absolutely enormous amount of dev work went into XC3. So, if this is the best Xenoblade can do in the very best sales environment the series will ever see, then do you think about having them do something else? Opportunity cost is real. As much as I love the Xeno series, I'd certainly consider it if I was Nintendo.

Other thoughts:
Delighted that Arceus has sold so strongly. To do those numbers without ever having a holiday season to itself is truly insane.
Delighted Mario Strikers Battle League is a flop. You put Mario and football together - two universally beloved things - and you get only 2m from a 115m install base. Pathetic flop, and well deserved. Put some effort into your sports games, Nintendo.
I think you re right but like... you can only grow so much. Xeno is a very niche ip (even within the niche ips at nintendo)

As for the mario game not selling very well...cant say im sad. I wish NLG made something more interesting.
 
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I think a good point of comparison for Xenoblade 3 is Three Houses. Both games came out in late July and both games got similar levels of acclaim. And by the end of 2019, Three Houses sold 2.58 million.


Going by these, if Xenoblade 3 sells roughly 800k more in the holiday season, then the series will have officially entered FE territory of sales (Reminder that Three Houses has sold just shy of 4 million). I personally don't think it'll quite match it and expect it to end up at around 2.1 or 2.2. Million by the end of 2022 but who knows. Maybe Xenoblade 3 being nominated for Goty and the small but passionate fanbase will help spread the word of mouth and get it to Three Houses' number.
 
Considering
  • 10 times the install base XC2 had at its launch
  • After 5 years of positive online reaction to XC2
  • Smash's huge numbers providing constant advertising for the series
  • Critical acclaim for the game itself...
...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.

When you then see a fairly low-effort game like Switch Sports shitting out 6m sales without issue, it becomes more so.

Monolith are one of Nintendo's very top teams. It's clear an absolutely enormous amount of dev work went into XC3. So, if this is the best Xenoblade can do in the very best sales environment the series will ever see, then do you think about having them do something else? Opportunity cost is real. As much as I love the Xeno series, I'd certainly consider it if I was Nintendo.

Other thoughts:
Delighted that Arceus has sold so strongly. To do those numbers without ever having a holiday season to itself is truly insane.
Delighted Mario Strikers Battle League is a flop. You put Mario and football together - two universally beloved things - and you get only 2m from a 115m install base. Pathetic flop, and well deserved. Put some effort into your sports games, Nintendo.
Why would Nintendo care about opportunity cost for XC? None of your reasoning on why it should have done better really translates to why it should do better
  • Sales do not scale in proportion to installbase
  • It took XC2 5yrs to reach the numbers it did
  • Smash frankly has rarely helped out franchises
  • Critical acclaim ≠ more sales

The fact is that Switch Sports has way more reach then a game like Xenoblade. Xenoblade is a weird niche jrpg. You just have to hope the legs last as long as XC2.

Just no. Mario Strikers is not a flop. Just because you mix Mario & football doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get higher numbers. Most people in that genre want realistic sports games like FIFA.
 
Considering
  • 10 times the install base XC2 had at its launch
  • After 5 years of positive online reaction to XC2
  • Smash's huge numbers providing constant advertising for the series
  • Critical acclaim for the game itself...
...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.

When you then see a fairly low-effort game like Switch Sports shitting out 6m sales without issue, it becomes more so.

Monolith are one of Nintendo's very top teams. It's clear an absolutely enormous amount of dev work went into XC3. So, if this is the best Xenoblade can do in the very best sales environment the series will ever see, then do you think about having them do something else? Opportunity cost is real. As much as I love the Xeno series, I'd certainly consider it if I was Nintendo.

Other thoughts:
Delighted that Arceus has sold so strongly. To do those numbers without ever having a holiday season to itself is truly insane.
Delighted Mario Strikers Battle League is a flop. You put Mario and football together - two universally beloved things - and you get only 2m from a 115m install base. Pathetic flop, and well deserved. Put some effort into your sports games, Nintendo.
With all due respect, but this take is so bad.

XC 3 did great and its growing the franchise. Why is it always this doom and gloom when we get new XC numbers?
 
Considering
  • 10 times the install base XC2 had at its launch
  • After 5 years of positive online reaction to XC2
  • Smash's huge numbers providing constant advertising for the series
  • Critical acclaim for the game itself...
...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.

When you then see a fairly low-effort game like Switch Sports shitting out 6m sales without issue, it becomes more so.

Monolith are one of Nintendo's very top teams. It's clear an absolutely enormous amount of dev work went into XC3. So, if this is the best Xenoblade can do in the very best sales environment the series will ever see, then do you think about having them do something else? Opportunity cost is real. As much as I love the Xeno series, I'd certainly consider it if I was Nintendo.

Other thoughts:
Delighted that Arceus has sold so strongly. To do those numbers without ever having a holiday season to itself is truly insane.
Delighted Mario Strikers Battle League is a flop. You put Mario and football together - two universally beloved things - and you get only 2m from a 115m install base. Pathetic flop, and well deserved. Put some effort into your sports games, Nintendo.
I for one am not surprised that the RPG franchise is selling decently but was outsold by freaking Wii Sports 3.

Also, uh, 2 million for what is likely a pretty low budget game? Best seller in its series as far as I can tell, in particular compared to the launch era Wii original? Mario Strikers didn't blow out, but it sure sounds like a modest success to me, albeit one that won't have too much legs. All these Mario sports games have sold in that range, if they didn't move their expectations properly then that's on Nintendo.
 
I dunno how you can look at some of these numbers and call them disappointing. Nintendo’s gotta be thrilled, especially since we’re walking straight into the holiday season.
 
Considering
  • 10 times the install base XC2 had at its launch
  • After 5 years of positive online reaction to XC2
  • Smash's huge numbers providing constant advertising for the series
  • Critical acclaim for the game itself...
...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.

When you then see a fairly low-effort game like Switch Sports shitting out 6m sales without issue, it becomes more so.

Monolith are one of Nintendo's very top teams. It's clear an absolutely enormous amount of dev work went into XC3. So, if this is the best Xenoblade can do in the very best sales environment the series will ever see, then do you think about having them do something else? Opportunity cost is real. As much as I love the Xeno series, I'd certainly consider it if I was Nintendo.

Other thoughts:
Delighted that Arceus has sold so strongly. To do those numbers without ever having a holiday season to itself is truly insane.
Delighted Mario Strikers Battle League is a flop. You put Mario and football together - two universally beloved things - and you get only 2m from a 115m install base. Pathetic flop, and well deserved. Put some effort into your sports games, Nintendo.
Are you really surprised that a sequel to Wii Sports would outsell the newest Xenoblade Chronicles game? Not sure if your expectations for Switch Sports were astronomically low or your expectations for Xenoblade 3 were astronomically high.
 
It is absolutely amazing how much the hornet's nest gets stirred up when you have a contrary opinion in sales threads. Nothing else on this site guarantees a string of notification pings so much as that.

I always wonder what the psychology behind that is.
 
It is absolutely amazing how much the hornet's nest gets stirred up when you have a contrary opinion in sales threads. Nothing else on this site guarantees a string of notification pings so much as that.

I always wonder what the psychology behind that is.
Probably because you made a series of easily contestable points.
 
Are you really surprised that a sequel to Wii Sports would outsell the newest Xenoblade Chronicles game? Not sure if your expectations for Switch Sports were astronomically low or your expectations for Xenoblade 3 were astronomically high.
Eh, my expectations for Switch Sports were low, but it's ended up not far where I expected.
  • Not Wii Sports branded so only technically a sequel
  • 18 years since that phenomenon
  • Not particularly well received
  • Saw no marketing for it at all
It was never going to recapture the magic of the original Wii Sports games, but it was always going to sell more than comparable Mario sports games. I thought 5 mil or so - it has beat that.

It's obvious that my expectations for XC3 were too high. I thought it should double XC2 and XC:DE numbers without issue given install base, marketing/social media anticipation and critical reception.
 
Maybe it's just fine as is, because it diversifies your first party line-up?
This is definitely part of Nintendo's approach to their software portfolio.

Also worth remembering Xenoblade is no longer Monolith's only output; they have a notable presence in helping with open world Zelda, and given the rate of expansion, it wouldn't surprise me to see some new, non-Xenoblade title come from Monolith Soft (though I don't see XB itself vanishing to make way for that).
 
Nearly 8 million for Splatoon in 21 days is fucking wild.

Happy to see Xenoblade 3 be close to 2 million. Hopefully, after the holidays it'll be past it. Maybe after the holidays we can get confirmation that Metroid passed 3 million too.

Pokemon Legends is disappointing. I wish that did better but S/V took its legs. Meanwhile BD/SP are the worst Pokemon games ever made and they're close to 15 mil so 🤷‍♂️

Excited to see Switch still selling as much as it is. At this point, I don't expect them to talk about the next one until after the FY ends.
 
It is absolutely amazing how much the hornet's nest gets stirred up when you have a contrary opinion in sales threads. Nothing else on this site guarantees a string of notification pings so much as that.

I always wonder what the psychology behind that is.
your contrary opinion is that wii sports shouldn't sell better than a two hundred hour jrpg about metaphysical alternate realities and sometimes breasts
 
Eh, my expectations for Switch Sports were low, but it's ended up not far where I expected.
  • Not Wii Sports branded so only technically a sequel
  • 18 years since that phenomenon
  • Not particularly well received
  • Saw no marketing for it at all
It was never going to recapture the magic of the original Wii Sports games, but it was always going to sell more than comparable Mario sports games. I thought 5 mil or so - it has beat that.

It's obvious that my expectations for XC3 were too high. I thought it should double XC2 and XC:DE numbers without issue given install base, marketing/social media anticipation and critical reception.
That’s a frankly wild expectation no one should of had.
Is that explained anywhere? The only thing I see on the site about it is this note, which very well could mean what you said:
"*This number has been adjusted to reflect a revision of sales units in previous years."
The numbers were added onto by 20k for Zelda, 30k for Smash, not sure about Pokémon
 
Is that explained anywhere? The only thing I see on the site about it is this note, which very well could mean what you said:
"*This number has been adjusted to reflect a revision of sales units in previous years."
Not explicitly, but we can basically be sure of it anyway:
  • Smash and Zelda also have this note, but the adjustment is only 10k and 20k respectively (which could even be in part due to rounding errors as often happens)
  • the adjustment for Sword/Shield is significantly larger since it didn't make the list of FY million-sellers even though its LTD is up 1.10m from the one reported in March
  • it only sold 370k in Jan-Mar and 230k in Apr-Jun, there's no way to explain a jump to 870k in Jul-Sep especially since the game disappeared from all charts
  • it was already figured out that the bundle wasn't counted before because Nintendo's figures for Japan didn't align with Famitsu data in Oct-Dec 2020 ⬇️

[NSW] Pokemon Sword / Shield + Expansion Pass <RPG> (Pokemon Co.) {2020.11.06} (¥8.689)

Pokémon Sword/Shield shipments via Nintendo

Oct-Dec 2019 - 4.210.000 / NEW
Jan-Mar 2020 - 310.000 / 4.520.000
Apr-Sep 2020 - 250.000 / 4.770.000
Oct-Dec 2020 - 220.000 / 4.990.000

Pokémon Sword/Shield sell-through via Famitsu

Oct-Dec 2019 - 3.190.000 / NEW
Jan-Mar 2020 - 370.000 / 3.550.000
Apr-Sep 2020 - 200.000 / 3.750.000
Oct-Dec 2020 - 330.000 / 4.080.000 (170k of which are from the bundle and it still had around 30k copies on shelves)
 
I wonder if Super Smash Bros. Special can eke out another 200k to pass SMB1 in Japan. It seems like it ought to be doable, it's already at 6.6m, but it wrapped up DLC before last Christmas and I'm not sure how many more sales they have left to wring from it
And maybe you don't want such an outrageously talented team working on a niche product.
Yeah, I've been saying that we need to get them on Pokémon
 
It is absolutely amazing how much the hornet's nest gets stirred up when you have a contrary opinion in sales threads. Nothing else on this site guarantees a string of notification pings so much as that.

I always wonder what the psychology behind that is.
It’s just comical and transparent to think that you as an individual think you l know what Nintendo “should” do with how they staff their teams. Nintendo is obviously fine with how Xenoblade is handled since they keep doing the same thing with it; Xenoblade players are obviously fine with getting more Xenoblade games from the people who make Xenoblade games. It’s just you who thinks that the people who make Xenoblade games shouldn’t make more Xenoblade games because those people “deserve” to have greater sales figures and should want to have greater sales at the expense of creating the games they want to make and can sell to their own audience. If the people who actually have a stake in the sales are fine with the sales then it doesn’t really matter how people who don’t have stakes in the sales feel about the sales. I wonder what the psychology behind that is.
 
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okay i keep seeing this and is it just internet randos trying to wishcast it into reality? why?
there are some technical obstacles to backwards compatibility on a new graphics architecture but it's nothing they can't handle
 
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okay i keep seeing this and is it just internet randos trying to wishcast it into reality? why?
People see Nintendo charging full price for Wii U ports and immediately forget that nearly all of their consoles have allowed for full BC when the hardware was actually capable of doing so.

Basically, cynicism mixed with a bit of fanboyism.
 
Via Serebii:

FhBbTVsXkAAi_5v


Where do we think Scarlet/Violet will debut?

In the FY earnings report, I think it'll be even to Gold/Silver. I kinda expect these games to be monsters.
 
People see Nintendo charging full price for Wii U ports and immediately forget that nearly all of their consoles have allowed for full BC when the hardware was actually capable of doing so.

Basically, cynicism mixed with a bit of fanboyism.
Essentially the “Nintendo gonna Nintendo” mindset. It doesn’t help that it’s still parroted to this day by quite a few YouTubers
 
Calendar Year Shipments

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For the Calendar Year Switch hardware is at 10.79 million after three quarters compared to 13.00 million in 2021, it needs 9.21 million in CYQ4 to reach 20.00 million for 2022. Switch software after three quarters is at 151.18 million compared to 148.67 million in 2021, this is the highest it's ever been and needs 82.90 million in CYQ4 to beat 2021's total.
 
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Still not over 155M?
How that? so weak. Switch and nintendo are clearly dying.

/s

I could see total sold to be around 130M, maybe 140. Not 155 because before that there will be another release.
Theres also the point, that the market did diversify (tablets, phones, pc gamingcoming back big,
and with all that i feel like its to late in its lifetime to expect 150+ units.

+ PS2 had a time where it was so cheap, that people literally bought it simply as a blue ray player or as a Singstar box.
For those cases in todays world (causal games for the masses, streaming) we have ...literally every other device.
 
XC3 deserves more sales, was hoping for two millions at this point but they got pretty close with about two months of sales. There's no doubt is going to be the best selling game in the series and deservedly so.
 
So as of NOW, XC 3 grew significantly the franchise. All that is left to see is if its going to have legs, which I believe it will. I personally expect it to sell 500k this holiday, but we'll see.
an extra half million over the holidays is a tall order for a JRPG, but I can see it doing well enough to break 2 million by the end of the year. If not the calendar year then the fiscal year ending in March.
 
I wonder if Super Smash Bros. Special can eke out another 200k to pass SMB1 in Japan. It seems like it ought to be doable, it's already at 6.6m, but it wrapped up DLC before last Christmas and I'm not sure how many more sales they have left to wring from it
It just sold 280k in 6 months, it won't have any issue passing Gold/Silver as well. YTD it's only down 16% so far, from a year where it sold 1 million units in the end.

Only question mark is if it's reaching Pokémon Red/Green or not
 
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While I’ve made my disappointment in XC3 very clear, I’m happy to see it do well. That said, I think it’s too early to draw any conclusions about how well it will do going forward.

XC2 did unusually well over a long period of time. I hope we see that trend continue, but despite it‘s strong start, I actually expected better from XC3 in terms of early sales.

It feels crazy to say that in some sense because it’s outsold XC2 and DE handily, but I also think @Heron makes some good points.

I’m intrigued to see it's legs over the coming months and into the next year. It’s probably going to have to shift another 800K+ to pass XC2, and before XC2, I don’t think anyone would have expected that kind of performance from the series after the front loaded opening months.

DE sales dried up very quickly - but that was an old game, so it’s hard to draw any parallels, though it’s interesting to think about.

The season pass, and more specifically the expansion, will help - but despite the grief XC2 got in certain communities, I actually think it’s notoriety among some actually saw it reach a larger audience.

I do expect XC3 to get some love in the GOTY season though, so it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out…
 
Still not over 155M?
How that? so weak. Switch and nintendo are clearly dying.

/s

I could see total sold to be around 130M, maybe 140. Not 155 because before that there will be another release.
Theres also the point, that the market did diversify (tablets, phones, pc gamingcoming back big,
and with all that i feel like its to late in its lifetime to expect 150+ units.

+ PS2 had a time where it was so cheap, that people literally bought it simply as a blue ray player or as a Singstar box.
For those cases in todays world (causal games for the masses, streaming) we have ...literally every other device.

PS2 had an insane longevity, seems like they only stopped counting sales in early 2012

Let's see how hard the sales will drop when there's a new main platform. The current models will probably still get support for a while and become positioned as cheaper options, so they could have some longevity
 
I had hoped that Xenoblade would cross 2 million at launch, but in hindsight it should've been obvious that tying XC3's story to 1 & 2 in the marketing would limit the potential audience.

I think the most important thing for the next Xenoblade would be to make it clear in the marketing that it would be a clean break from 1,2 & 3's story. It can still happen in the same universe, but completely break ties with the current cast and story. Here's to hoping the next Xenoblade can cross 4 million.
 
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Considering
  • 10 times the install base XC2 had at its launch
  • After 5 years of positive online reaction to XC2
  • Smash's huge numbers providing constant advertising for the series
  • Critical acclaim for the game itself...
...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.
I do believe the number could've been larger, but not by a lot, we're talking about a handful of hundred thousand units and that's it. I think it's important to remember that the installed base can only influence so much as the game still has its own target demographic, which is miniscule compared to the number of total Switches out there.

Additionally, Xenoblade 2 certainly grew in popularity since its release window, but at the end of the day, the growth amounted to ~2.5 million units across a little more than 4 years, almost doubling the number it'd done by the end of its first quarter in the market. That's the baseline 3 was aiming for, and I think it did a reasonable amount, putting itself 800K units from topping the best selling Xenoblade game.
 
PS2 had an insane longevity, seems like they only stopped counting sales in early 2012

Let's see how hard the sales will drop when there's a new main platform. The current models will probably still get support for a while and become positioned as cheaper options, so they could have some longevity
As i mentioned, PS2 was insanely cheap and had usecases that you needed it for.
DVDs and Singstar are the biggest (or...THE reasons) why. (The easy way to pirate games did also help, same as with PS1.
Half of the world only ever bought the console, a chip, a memory card, and maybe a second gamepad)

"To date, over 70 SingStar SKUs have been produced in the PAL territories across PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, with recent franchise entries including Singstar Abba and Singstar Queen.".
There where a ton of regional releases with hits from that region. Well, there was also rockband and their variants...

What i want to say: current mass market causal games are on multiple platforms (Just Dance, Candy Crush, Minecraft,...)
--> no need to buy something for them, you almost for shure already have something to play them.
DVDs --> streaming is available on every platform...except switch, there its not. (amazon prime, spotify,...)

And price? the switch did not fall in price in all those years. And its not easy to crack them for piracy.

I really dont see a future where it keeps the momentum and reaches PS2 numbers. Im actually suprized about the sales.
I expected 100M, but expected to barely reach it till the successor is anounced, and to creep up to 110M by the end.

And while they could position the current one as a cheap model (and since many indie and nintendo games dont need the extra power i can see that), but the jump will be significant enough that i could see people just going for the higher model, since they can play (i am asuming this, so probably) all games on the next, but are future proof.
Its not like jumping on a PS2/3 when the next gen is released.
 
I think its dependent upon two things
  1. How long crossgen lasts
  2. How easily available Drake is
If both go on for quite a while then I could see a situation where Switch eeks out the top spot.
Looking at how quickly OLED became the dominant hardware model and how much Original and Lite are down from their peaks, Drake'll need to be pretty supply constrained to not do the same thing.

...that's disappointing for XC3 to me.

When you then see a fairly low-effort game like Switch Sports shitting out 6m sales without issue, it becomes more so.
Xenoblade 3, selling a little more than its predecessors. Switch Sports, selling way way less than its predecessors.
 
I am feeling worried that people are seeming to take the current financial report and then rushing over to the latest Media Create Sales numbers to say that Splatoon 3 is only popular in Japan. It's just another way for people to put down any Nintendo game post -insert your childhood years here- in sales.

The game sold
~2.9 M in Japan as of September 30th (the Media Create Sales went to October 2nd but it's close enough)
~5M for the rest of the world

A far better figure than the "It sold only 2 M worldwide." It's just...exhausting that the game has had 3 runaway successes (including on the Wii U) and people are still finding ways to say it's niche and not popular.
 
The software sales numbers are still just insane to me. Mario Kart can't be stopped
Well, i had MK8 (+ DLC), then i buckled and bought it again for a gaming night on switch.
This year i was so close to buying it again, since i somehow lost the cartridge somewhere 2-3 years ago...
Its a universal game. if you want multiplayer, there are almost no games tht are as easy to pic up, play, make fon for the good ones as well as the fresh players, and are effortless to explain.
MP is more involved (every minigame needs an explanation, and the boardcan take some time + off times for different players)
Smash? as much as sakurai tried it, the distance between fresh players and veterans even in the most causal modes is to big,
and the chaos can be overwhelming (same with the roster)
What else is there? i just feel MK hits the sweet spot so well, that there is nothing competing with it,
and it just is the best feeling/playing kart racer.
 
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