The original Switch is officially Nintendo’s best-selling console of all time after surpassing the DS handheld in lifetime sales. In its latest earnings release, Nintendo reports that the Nintendo Switch has, as of December 31, 2025, sold 155.37 million units since its launch in 2017, compared to 154.02 million units for the 2004 Nintendo DS.
I am not surprised. I was always more a fan of portable consoles and the switch combining portable play with normal console play on TV is really a dream come true. The variety of games is a huge plus too.
A fact that is often missed is also the game state. Be it saved games or a game in standby, I can just take it with me. Of course cloud save tries to do this but does not succeed fully and (worse) locks it behind a subscription.
So whether I move to another room or go on vacation, the switch is an easy decision to take with me, making it a win there.
Yep. Steam Deck does a great job with this, too.
Direct link to Nintendo’s financial data: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html
Looking at the best selling consoles, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles ) there are some other interesting things too. Switch is already # 2 and Nintendo Switch 2 is too new so not much to see there, but when looking at PlayStations, PS5 (84.2 M units sold) is currently the least sold Sony home console, but should take over PS3 (87.4 M) soon enough. I think it will cross PS1 (102.49 M) too, but whether it can cross PS4 (117.2 M) sales remain to be seen.
If the rumours about delaying PS6 to 2029 are true, then it has good chance to take over PS4, but with the way the prices and economic condition are going, who can say what will happen.
It might stay that way for a while.
Switch is a fusion of their handheld and home console lines and had an effective product run of over a decade going through multiple periods of greatly increased sales. Its not that surprising.
Switch is a good concept executed poorly. The controllers are total junk, constantly disconnecting and just too small and awkward.
