Nintendo Switch 2's 3.5 million opening weekend sales smashes brand's console record — beats Switch 1's opening month by almost a million in four days
That's a lot of Nintendo's
Nintendo has announced that the company's new Nintendo Switch 2 has soundly beaten its console sales record, selling 3.5 million units worldwide in just four days since its release on June 5, the company announced on Wednesday. By way of comparison, that's 760,000 more units than the original Switch sold in its first month, March 2017.
"This is the highest global sales level for any Nintendo hardware within the first four days," the company announced. It means the company is more than one-fifth of the way towards its stated goal of selling 15 million units by the end of its next financial year, March 2026.
Despite a few horror stories, the launch generally seems to have gone smoothly. GameStop customers at a store in New York were horrified to find the staples used to attach receipts to the front of the console's box had actually punctured the screen, with all of the affected customers given replacements.
Across the pond, UK customers at a multitude of retailers noted their units arrived unsealed, with the tape used to secure the box closed appearing to have been broken, possibly due to a flaw in the tape which was too weak for purpose.
At the cost of some battery life, the Switch 2 boasts several improvements over its predecessor, with new Joy-Con 2 controllers featuring optical sensors that mean you can use the controllers like a mouse for aiming and scrolling. The screen is a larger 7.9-inch offering with 1080p and a 120Hz refresh rate.
Under the hood, official Nintendo Switch 2 specs reveal eight ARM Cortex A78C cores featuring the ARMv8 64-bit instruction set, and a custom Nvidia Ampere GPU. The console also features 12GB of LPDDR5X memory and 256GB of internal storage, upgradeable to up to 2TB thanks to its microSD Express card slot.
Turns out that slot also paves the way for a novel DIY hack, support for M2 NVMe SSDs, at least theoretically speaking.
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Despite the early success, if you were wondering where to buy the Nintendo Switch 2, it remains in stock at a couple of retailers, notably GameStop and Best Buy, as well as plenty of retailers in the UK.
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Stephen is Tom's Hardware's News Editor with almost a decade of industry experience covering technology, having worked at TechRadar, iMore, and even Apple over the years. He has covered the world of consumer tech from nearly every angle, including supply chain rumors, patents, and litigation, and more. When he's not at work, he loves reading about history and playing video games.
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TheyStoppedit "Why should I put a bunch of Cadillacs on the ice, when I can sell out with a bunch of Volkswagens?"Reply
- Harold Ballard -
Notton PS5 first month: 3.4MReply
PS5 first year: 17.3M
PS4 first year: 20.2M
(But keep in mind PS5 had availability issues for about 2yrs) -
Rando99 And yet, I've been to three Walmarts in the past week, and all of them had Switch2s on the shelf waiting for buyers.Reply
So, Nintendo at least nailed the launch day supply chain issues from last model. If you have too much money to spend on a game console right now, no need to rush down and panic-buy. And hopefully that obviates and castrates the scalpers.
I was one of the lucky ones that got the OG Switch on launch day, and I did not buy one this time. But it was interesting and good to see that they were still available past launch day itself. -
KyaraM Reply
Yeah, I would say their plan worked out magnificently. Though to be fair, apparently today was restock day, so if you looked today, of course you saw a bunch of consoles. Apparently they were pretty sold out on Thursday, for example. Of course, supply and demand is always a regional thing, too; there ought to be a couple places where demand wasn't as big, and more consoles went unsold. That's bound to happen in some places.Rando99 said:And yet, I've been to three Walmarts in the past week, and all of them had Switch2s on the shelf waiting for buyers.
So, Nintendo at least nailed the launch day supply chain issues from last model. If you have too much money to spend on a game console right now, no need to rush down and panic-buy. And hopefully that obviates and castrates the scalpers. -
Rando99 ReplyKyaraM said:Yeah, I would say their plan worked out magnificently. Though to be fair, apparently today was restock day, so if you looked today, of course you saw a bunch of consoles. Apparently they were pretty sold out on Thursday, for example. Of course, supply and demand is always a regional thing, too; there ought to be a couple places where demand wasn't as big, and more consoles went unsold. That's bound to happen in some places.
No it was Friday and the weekend. So not "after a restock". -
SheLikesMeForMyClock And just like that, Nintendo's anti-consumer practices have been justified. When nobody cares and buys the products regardless, why would companies have ANY incentive not to incorporate hostile features (like remotely bricking consoles or turning physical games into physical product license keys) into their products?Reply
It is what it is, I suppose. -
boju If anyone gets a switch 2, update joy con firmware immediately. There is an issue with them not charging properly.Reply