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Nintendo’s runaway handheld-turned-hybrid has done something quietly dramatic: the Switch has edged past the DS to become the company’s all-time bestseller. No confetti. No grand ceremony. Just numbers that rewrite a long-standing chapter in Nintendo’s history.
The Nintendo Switch sits at 155.37 million units sold, surpassing the Nintendo DS, which totals 154.02 million. That margin isn’t huge, but it’s decisive. The Game Boy family remains a cultural legend and sits behind them in third place when Nintendo folds its variants into single tallies.
What pushed the Switch over the line? Part of it is momentum. Even after the Switch 2 launched in mid-2025, many buyers kept picking up the original model — discounts, secondhand markets, and a still-healthy library kept sales ticking. The newer console opened strong, moving 6 million units in under a month and now accounting for about 17.37 million units. Still, that leaves a long runway before the Switch 2 can challenge its predecessor’s lifetime figures.
But consoles aren’t just about hardware. Software tells the fuller story. The original Switch has become a software juggernaut, with roughly 1,500.16 million games sold. For context: the DS clocked in at 948.76 million games, and the Wii — a surprising contender here — is at 921.85 million. The Wii sold around 101.63 million consoles, fewer than the Game Boy family, but its software attach rate was enormous. The Game Boy itself sold 501.11 million games, a staggering legacy in its own right.
On the global leaderboard, however, Nintendo’s new milestone doesn’t dethrone the all-time champ. That crown still belongs to Sony’s PlayStation 2, which reached roughly 160 million units over its exceptionally long lifespan and sits ahead in lifetime games sold as well, with about 1.54 billion titles moved.
Numbers aside, the Switch’s climb says something about platform longevity and audience loyalty. A seven-year run, smart first-party releases, and a hybrid form factor that resonated with casual and hard-core players alike — those are the real engines behind the milestone. Where will the next decade take Nintendo? That’s the question every fan and investor is already betting on.
Source: gsmarena
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