Roughly 300m consoles, 427m portables
As someone who has bought at least one of every Nintendo system since the NES, it’s incredible to see just how much the company has sold throughout my lifetime.
According to public data straight from Nintendo, the publisher has reached a milestone of over 700 million systems sold — both of the console and portable variety. Breaking it down, consoles from the NES to the Nintendo Switch era hit 300.54 million units sold, and portables from the Game Boy to the 3DS sailed to 427.11 million.
Comparing consoles the Wii is by far the greatest success, it’s not even close, at 101.63 million units. Of course the Wii U is the worst at 13.56m, and incredibly the Switch (19.67m) is already approaching the GameCube’s lifetime sales (21.74m) in just over a year — next stop, The Nintendo 64 at 32.93m.
In the portable arena everything has hit a respectable 70 million mark at minimum. The DS towers above the rest with 154.02m, followed by the Game Boy (and Game Boy Color) at 118.69m, then the Game Boy Advance at 81.51m, and the 3DS at 72.89m. You can really start to see some trends form too, with every other generation generally hitting a stride — especially on the portable side.
The full list is available here, which also includes software sales. You can also find a full chronological breakdown from us starting with the most recent systems below.
Dedicated Video Game Sales Units [Nintendo] Thanks John!
Nintendo Switch
Hardware: 19.67 million units
Software: 86.93 million unitsNintendo 3DS
72.89 million units
367.84 million unitsWii U
13.56 million units
102.28 million unitsWii
101.63 million units
919.94 million unitsNintendo DS
154.02 million units
948.62 million unitsGame Boy Advance
81.51 million units
377.42 million unitsGame Boy
118.69 million units
501.11 million unitsNintendo GameCube
21.74 million units
208.57 million unitsNintendo 64
32.93 million units
224.97 million unitsSNES
49.10 million units
379.06 million unitsNES
61.91 million units
500.01 million units
