Switch Shipments Reach 55.77 Million Units as of March 31, Animal Crossing: New Horizons Sells 12 Million - Sales

by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 July 2020 / 5,230 Views

Nintendo has released its latest hardware and software figures for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS through March 31, 2020. Shipments figures for the Nintendo Switch reached 55.77 million units, while the Nintendo 3DS hit 75.77 million units shipped. As for lifetime software 356.24 million Switch games have been shipped and 383.11 million 3DS games.

For the quarter Nintendo shipped 3.28 million Switch units and 45.59 million Switch games, as well as 0.07 million 3DS units and 0.89 million 3DS games.

Nintendo forecasts it will ship 19 million Switch units in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.

Here are the top 10 best-selling Switch first-party titles:

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 24.77 million
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 18.84 million
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 17.41 million
Super Mario Odyssey – 17.41 million
Pokemon Sword / Pokemon Shield – 17.37 million
Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! – 11.97 million
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 11.77 million (first 11 days) / 13.41 million (first six weeks)
Splatoon 2 – 10.13 million
Super Mario Party – 10.10 million
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 6.60 million

Nintendo also shared the sales figures of more games:

Luigi’s Mansion 3 – 6.33 million
Super Mario Maker 2 – 5.48 million
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – 4.38 million
Fire Emblem: Three Houses – 2.87 million
Ring Fit Adventure – 2.73 million
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX – 1.26 million
Astral Chain – 1.08 million
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order – 1.08 million

Nintendo in a separate report revealed sell-in figures for the Nintendo switch. For the 2020 fiscal year Nintendo sold 21.03 million Switch consoles, which is a 24 percent increase over the 16.95 million sold the previous year. Software sales for the fiscal year jumped 42.3 percent to 168.72 million games sold.

Nintendo also revealed sell-through sales in three major regions for the 2020 fiscal year. In North America sales for the Switch were 7.67 million units, a 20 percent increase. In Europe, sales increased 19 percent to 5.37 million units, and in Japan sales jumped 33 percent to 5.06 million units.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

21 Comments

javi741 (on 07 May 2020)

Mario Kart 8 is quietly becoming one of the greatest selling games of all time, with both the Wii U and Switch version combining to sell nearly 34 Million units, borderline about to Outsell MK Wii's lifetime sales which is insane. Mario Kart 8 legitimately has a chance to hit close to 45 Million sales when all said and done. I'm amazed how well that game is selling 3 years in and as a port of a 6 year old game.

Smash is selling amazing, and it seems like Pokemon and Zelda are going to surpass Mario Odyssey's sales in the next report, as it seems like those games are having better evergreen sales that Odyssey, however they are all still selling amazingly well and they're all easy 20 Million Sellers.

Splatoon 2 is now a 10 Million seller, well deserved since it's an awesome shooter despite it's lack of content, I think a sequel could do really well

Mario party and NSMBU are surprising me, I thought an unambitious NSMBU port would immediately die as soon as SMM2 released but it continues to Outsell that game and sell well as an evergreen title. This shows that people still love traditional 2D Mario games and I think that Nintendo should really consider making a totally original 2D Mario game since I bet it would sell amazingly well. And the NSMB series is known to sell like crazy, with NSMB Wii and DS both selling 30Million+
Mario Party is surprising me because Mario Party never really been a 10M+ selling franchise before as it mostly sells in the low to mid Millions each entry, not to mention Super Mario Party isn't the best Mario party game like we know on the GC and N64.

Bofferbrauer2 javi741 (on 07 May 2020)

MK8D needs to have a look at the back Mirror, a huge Boss, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, is approaching fast!

siebensus4 javi741 (on 07 May 2020)

uh, Splatoon 2 has a lack of content, are you kidding? Maybe at launch of the game, but not today. It has almost too much weapons, clothes and maps and an awesome variety of modes. The game has maybe 70 % more content than at launch.

peachbuggy (on 07 May 2020)

55.77m shipped a month ago, yet as of almost a month later this site has the numbers 1m less. Given the situation at the end of March and the whole of April, i'm guessing shipped basically equalled sold, as the Switch was in very short supply. So i suspect the Switch is substantially undertracked here.

Moschegam peachbuggy (on 10 May 2020)

I also think.

javi741 (on 07 May 2020)

I'm disappointed that Mario Maker 2 never sold as well as originally thought. I can't believe people choose to buy a lazily made NSMBU port and not Mario Maker 2. I thought Mario Maker 2 would be an easy 10 Million seller but I guess not. I wonder why people aren't interested in that game when it's so amazing

nantonaku javi741 (on 07 May 2020)

I was also surprised that Mario Maker 2 isn't selling as well as I thought it would. Mario Maker is a great game for people who play Mario a lot, but people who don't play a lot of games might not be interested in creating and sharing it.

Bofferbrauer2 javi741 (on 07 May 2020)

Parents and more casual players, who make a big part of their audience, probably don't understand that that's no game maker like the RPGMaker which needs some programming skills, but simply a course maker. And that you don't need to make courses to play courses - or even entire adventures by now with the latest update.

Slownenberg javi741 (on 07 May 2020)

Agreed. With so many Nintendo series absolutely destroying their records it is bizarre to see Mario Maker 2 in its current sales position. One would think that would be an easy 10 million seller and would surely outsell an old port of a quite frankly fairly mediocre 2D Mario. I think most likely it's because people associate Mario Maker with making levels but not with basically getting an unlimited supply of levels to make. Mario Maker has way more replay value than any Mario but I think a lot of people just think hey I wanna play Mario I don't wanna have to deal with trying to make levels. I get that, I have Mario Maker and while I think it'd be real cool to make levels when I go and play all these awesome level made by other people I'm kinda like eh I'll just leave it to other people, and I haven't made any levels yet outside of just testing it out for like 20 minutes.

But yeah, if there was any justice in this world MM2 would be a 15+ million game. It's plainly obvious though that Nintendo needs to bring out a brand new 2D Mario game since a port that launched without much fanfare is gonna end up as a 10 million seller. I think the start of a brand new 2D Mario series on Switch could give the Switch another 20 million seller.

JWeinCom javi741 (on 08 May 2020)

I think there are two factors...

People like a sense of progression. There is something satisfying about progressing through and completing a game. The story mode of Mario Maker sort of has that aspect, but it's more about showing you things you could do than being an actual Mario game. You don't really get that kind of thing from the main story either although the new world design feature may help.
Finding good levels is hard. There are no doubt some great levels, but it's kind of a crapshoot if you use most of the modes. Top levels are often gimmicks like autorun levels and such. I'm sure I could search for good designers, but ain't nobody got time for that. I just want to play Mario not do a research project.

Basically on the one hand we have thousands of great levels buried among tons of mediocrity vs 160 or so really good to great levels that are easily accessible. For the devoted, the unlimited potential is great, but for most people, 150ish Mario levels is going to be more than enough, and picking up and playing is better than navigating course world.

tripenfall javi741 (on 09 May 2020)

Mario Maker 2 has certainly been a bit disappointing sales wise, a launch missing a few features didn't help. I personally think the game played better on WiiU, the GamePad made the game a joy to play IMO....

Bofferbrauer2 javi741 (on 09 May 2020)

I agree, was much easier and more intuitive to make courses on it with the Gamepad and stylus than on the Switch

scottslater (on 07 May 2020)

After the Microsoft/Sony presentations we have had so far about next gen consoles, pretty confident the Switch will dominate the market for a while.

SanAndreasX (on 08 May 2020)

Damn, Switch is a beast. Well-deserved, too. Possibly my favorite system of all time.

zorg1000 (on 07 May 2020)

were this sites numbers adjusted down?

UnderwaterFunktown (on 07 May 2020)

Hoping Astral Chain can claw its way to 1.5 mil+, but sadly we probably won't get any more updates on it from Nintendo since it won't be a million seller within future fiscal years.