Nintendo Switch sales leap past 3DS as Animal Crossing fuels purchases

Nintendo delivered the financial report for the third quarter in its FY2021 today, and that report held some pretty surprising information regarding Switch sales. Lifetime sales for the console have shot up to 79.87 million, which is enough to place the Switch above the Nintendo 3DS in terms of lifetime sales. The Nintendo 3DS sold 75.94 million units over its lifespan, which just wrapped up last year when Nintendo discontinued production on the handheld.

When Nintendo delivered its last financial report in November, Switch sales were sitting 68.30 million worldwide, so in the latest quarter alone, sales have increased by 11 million units. There are a few different factors driving these sales for Nintendo. The first is the pandemic, which has kept people inside and prompted a video game sales spike.

Then, of course, we have the holiday shopping season as a big potential driver of sales, and with both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles difficult to find at the moment, it isn't hard to imagine that a lot of people found a Switch under the tree this year. One thing that was definitely a major driver of Switch sales in 2020 was the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons in March. Nintendo reported today [PDF] that New Horizons has moved a whopping 31.41 million units since release, which is an absurd number of copies for such a short timeframe.

While home consoles have historically been somewhat hit or miss for Nintendo, the same is not true for handhelds. The 3DS is actually the worst-selling handheld Nintendo has ever offered, with the Game Boy Advance (81.51 million), Game Boy/Game Boy Color (118.69 million), and Nintendo DS (151.02 million) all outselling it. The Switch will certainly surpass the Game Boy Advance by the time everything is said and done, but catching the others will be more difficult a task. That's especially true of the Nintendo DS, which is the single best-selling piece of hardware Nintendo has ever released.

In terms of home consoles, only the Wii sits above the Nintendo Switch in terms of lifetime sales now. At this point, it seems likely that the Switch will beat the Wii's 101.63 million sales eventually, as it only needs to sell about 22 million units to get to that point. We'll see what happens from here, but it might not be too much longer before the Switch becomes Nintendo's best-selling home console of all time.