Nintendo Switch and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild broke all kinds of records in the U.S. The company said in a press release that the Switch is the fastest-selling console, at least in the U.S., and that Breath of the Wild is the fastest-selling Zelda game and launch title in its history.
Nintendo said it sold roughly 906,000 units of the Switch in the U.S. throughout March. That's quite the feat--the Switch is a new type of console, most consoles debut in the holiday season, and the biggest hurdle to selling even more Switch units appears to be Nintendo's ability to manufacture the device. "While Nintendo Switch sales are off to a record-breaking start, " the company said, "shipments have not yet been able to keep up with such high demand." That problem will only be exacerbated when games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Arms, and Splatoon 2 debut in the coming months.
Breath of the Wild sold even better. Roughly 460,000 copies of the Wii U version of the game were sold in March, and the Switch version sold an estimated 925,000 units. That means Nintendo sold more copies of Breath of the Wild for the Switch than it sold of the Switch console itself. Some of those sales were probably to collectors, sure, but chances are good that the 19,000 people who have Breath of the Wild for the Switch but do not have a Switch are planning to buy the console as soon as Nintendo finds a way to keep it on store shelves. A greater-than-100% attach rate is no joke.
To put those sales in context: Nintendo said the Wii U sold 13.56 million units worldwide between its November 2012 launch and December 2016; almost 1 million Switch units have been sold in its first month of availability within the U.S. alone. The Wii U's best-selling Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, sold roughly 2.11 million copies between September 2013 and December 2016. Breath of the Wild sold half that number (albeit in two consoles) in a fraction of the time. Saying the Switch and its flagship game have gotten off to a good start would be an understatement.
Nintendo said it plans to release worldwide sales figures for the Switch and Breath of the Wild on April 27. For now, the company's focus seems to be on meeting demand for the Switch in the U.S. It recently announced that the NES Classic Edition will be going the way of the original NES at the end of April, and we wouldn't be surprised if the company were to shift production from that miniature console to its next portable-slash-home device. For now, if you have a copy of Breath of the Wild for the Switch but no console, we hope you'll be able to play the game sooner rather than later.
