Nintendo Financial Update - Switch outsells Wii; BDSP sell ~15m copies; SwSh now 2nd best selling Pokémon titles ever

Between Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year's Eve, the October-December quarter is a big one for any business dealing with consumer products, and Nintendo is no exception to that. While Nintendo's latest quarterly investor briefing has revealed that their net sales over the holiday season in 2021 didn't quite match up to the performance of the previous year, several significant milestones have been set during this quarter for the Nintendo Switch, and for the Pokémon Franchise.

The story on everyone's lips is of course that the Nintendo Switch has passed the significant milestone of 100 million units sold worldwide, with a total of 103.54 million sold up to the end of December 2021. This means the console has now passed the Wii, which sold 101.63 million units over it's lifespan, as Nintendo's highest selling home console. It seems only a matter of time now until the console passes the Game Boy, which sold 118.69 million units between it's original and updated releases. The Nintendo DS's 154.02 million units is still some distance off, but with Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirming during an Investor Q&A following the earnings report that the Switch is still in the middle of it's lifecycle, there's still plenty of time for it to get there, especially if Nintendo continues with releasing new and upgraded models as they've been done with the Switch Lite and Switch OLED.

In software sales news, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl sold a combined total of 13.97 million units worldwide in the approximately one-and-a-half months between their release on November 10th and the end of December. With these strong initial sales, the game is potentially on track to outsell the originals on the Nintendo DS, with the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl having a combined 17.67 million copies worldwide over their lifetime. Adding in Pokémon Platinum's 7.6 million units would make it more of a stretch, but still not outside the realms of possibility, particularly given the next milestone that's been broken.

Pokémon Sword and Shield has sold 2.8 million units worldwide in the 9 months to December 31st, bringing sales up to a total of 23.90 million as of the end of December 2021. This makes these games the 5th best selling Nintendo Switch games, after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. More significant for Pokémon fans however is that this means Pokémon Sword and Shield are officially the 2nd best selling Pokémon titles of all time, surpassing the original release of Pokémon Gold and Silver, which sold as much as 23.73 million units on the Game Boy Color. The only higher selling Pokémon titles are of course the original Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green, which sold roughly 31.05 million copies in the original Game Boy release. It's probably unlikely at this stage that Sword and Shield will surpass that lofty goal, but these sales certainly demonstrate the continuing strength of the Pokémon franchise.

Though not discussed in the briefing itself, we also have a some early Japanese sales figures for Pokémon Legends: Arceus via David Gibson, a Senior Research Analyst at MST Financial. In a stunning opening week, the new games sold roughly 1.425 million copies outperforming all other Nintendo Switch titles over the same period apart from Animal Crossing: New Horizons. With such a strong positive response from fans, we look forward to seeing the worldwide numbers with Nintendo's next quarterly financials.

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