Nintendo Switch has already sold 8 million units in Japan

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Sales numbers tell a story calmly, week after week. In April 2019, weekly reports from the Japanese market showed the Nintendo Switch reaching 8 million units sold in the country, just over two years after its launch there on March 3, 2017.

The most interesting comparison was with the PlayStation 4. Sony’s console arrived in Japan on February 22, 2014, three years earlier, and at that moment totaled about 8.03 million units. The difference between the two was only 30 thousand devices. At the pace Nintendo’s hybrid was selling, overtaking was a matter of a week or two, which would make the Switch the best-selling console of that generation in the Japanese market.

The strong pace had been there since the debut. On its first weekend, the Switch passed 330 thousand units in Japan, a number similar to the PS4’s at its launch, and the consultancy Media Create estimated more than 500 thousand devices sold in the first month, a mark the PS4 took longer to reach. The press at the time itself pointed out that the exclusives on the way, such as Super Mario Maker 2 and the new Animal Crossing, would help increase that advantage even further.

What came next

The forecast came true, and by a wide margin. The Switch left the PS4 behind in Japan and kept accelerating, especially with the success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 30 June 2026, according to Nintendo itself, the console totaled 38.55 million units shipped in Japan, ahead of the Nintendo DS. The successor, Nintendo Switch 2, reached stores on 5 June 2025 and is compatible with most games from the first model.