Nintendo reports record profits as Switch sales eclipse the Game Boy Advance
Lifetime shipments for the Nintendo Switch stand at 84.59 million units.
Jamie Moorcroft-Sharp 
Photo by Stillness InMotion/Creative Commons
The latest financial report from Nintendo confirmed a major new milestone for the Switch. Total sales for the Switch across base models and Switch Lite models have hit 84.59 million units. This figure means that Switch has finally surpassed the Game Boy Advance lifetime sales of 81.5 million.
These updated figures make the Switch the fourth best-selling Nintendo console in history to date. Just last month, it was crowned the sixth best-selling in Japan. The consoles to beat are the DS with 154 million, the Game Boy at 118.7 million, and the Nintendo Wii with 101.6 million. It’s hard to directly compare the Switch against any of these, though, considering that the base model is a hybrid unit, functioning as both a home console and a handheld device.
28.83 million Switch consoles were sold in the last fiscal year. The company expects that to drop slightly for the next one to 25.50 million. This modest total would still see the console beat the Wii and become the best-selling one Nintendo has ever made.
The report also dives into software sales for the console. It shows that 230.88 million games were sold in the fiscal year, a number that’s 36.8% higher than it was the previous year. In that period, 36 games sold more than one million copies. 22 of those are Nintendo first-party titles, and 14 are from third-party developers. Outstanding games included Animal Crossing: New Horizons with 20.85 million units sold, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with 10.62 million, and Super Mario 3D All-Stars with 9.01 million.
Nintendo listed annual revenue of $16.59 billion, the highest the company has reported since the financial year for 2008/09, up 34.4% year-on-year. Operating profit for the year was $6.04 billion, the highest in Nintendo’s history, up by 81.8% year-on-year.
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