Highlights
- With 155.37M units sold worldwide, the Nintendo Switch has overtaken the Nintendo DS sales.
- The hybrid Nintendo Switch sustained strong sales even during pandemic-era.
- Switch software sales crossed 1.5B units.
Kyoto-based video game company Nintendo Co. Ltd., has officially declared that the Nintendo Switch has surpassed the lifetime hardware sales of the Nintendo DS, becoming the Japanese company’s best-selling console in history. According to the latest financial results, Switch has sold 155.37M units worldwide, edging past the Nintendo DS’s 154.02M figure. The data covered the sales figure up to Dec 31, 2025.
The milestone underscores the enduring market strength of a platform that launched in March 2017. Switch blended home and handheld gaming in a way that redefined Nintendo’s product strategy.
The DS, released in 2004, held the company’s top sales record for more than two decades. The Switch overtook that legacy through a combination of sustained sales across multiple models, including the Lite and OLED variants. The momentum carried into the early lifecycle of its successor, the Nintendo Switch 2.
Nintendo stated that Switch sustained its post-launch performance even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite shortage in stock, the system has sold 50M units during this two-year timeframe.
Nintendo Co., Ltd.
During the last nine-month period, Switch recorded modest sales of 1.36M units, with overall sales of 3.25M units in this Fiscal Year. Despite the projected sales of an additional 750K Switch consoles by April 1, the console still trails behind the PlayStation 2, which remains the best-selling console of all time, with more than 160M units sold globally.
Nintendo Switch’s Top-Selling Software
As per Nintendo’s sales report, Switch video games have sold 1.5B units till now, recording the highest software sales for the company. Among the first-party titles, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (2017) has sold 70.59M units, becoming the Switch’s highest-selling title.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018) have become the second and third best-selling games on Switch with 49.32M and 37.44M units, respectively. The other top-performing games on the console were The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Pokémon Scarlet/Pokémon Violet.
Despite the record high, Nintendo also recorded a 66% year-on-year (YoY) decline in Switch's hardware sales and 12.1% decrease in software sales in this Fiscal Year. The company mentioned that the decline was due to many Switch titles being playable on Switch 2, and that it had already expected this.
