With the season of financial reports underway, NPD Group has confirmed that Nintendos Switch has overtaken PlayStation 4 for the number of overall U.S. lifetime sales, making it the fourth best-selling video game console ever in the region. While there is a way to go for the Nintendo Switch to match the PlayStation 4s record for sales over the course of its history (117 million units sold, whereas Nintendos Switch is currently trailing by 107 million units), the upward trajectory indicates the Switch may very well be the fastest-selling console of all time. The worldwide shortage of semiconductors – something that Nintendo believes is not going away any time soon – has caused Nintendo to adjust its sales estimates, but the console is still within striking distance of becoming the third-best-selling console of all-time worldwide, should Nintendos sales projections prove true.
Despite beating PlayStation 4 in the U.S., Nintendos Switch is still lagging behind the original PlayStation when it comes to global sales, with the PS4 currently sitting at around 117 million units sold. Nintendo recently cut Nintendo’s sales projections of Switch units sold globally for the fiscal year 2023 from 23 million units to 20 million units. The gap between Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 (PS4) unit sales is closing daily, but PlayStation 4 has received a slight second wind, while Sony continues to struggle with the production of its PlayStation 5 console in light of technology shortages around the world.
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As per US NPD HW, “Lifetime unit sales of Nintendo Switch have now surpassed those of PlayStation 4, making it the 4th highest unit-selling console in U.S. history, and the 6th highest unit-selling video game hardware platform overall.” These sales have moved the Nintendo Switch past the milestone that The PlayStation 4 had achieved, making the Nintendo Switch the fourth highest-selling home console in U.S. history, trailing only The PlayStation 2, The Xbox 360, and The Wii. Nintendo released its latest earnings results today, and while not being able to fulfill demand because of supply shortfalls, they managed to sell 10.67m units of Nintendo Switch during the holiday season, thus raising total worldwide Switch sales to 107m units sold since the launch of the platform in 2017.
Of course, PlayStation 5 being oversold is no surprise, since the next generation of consoles, including Xbox Series X/S, launched in 2020 and have slowed down the sales for newer PS4 systems. While Xbox Series X/S was the second-best-selling console in April 2022, and for the year, because of limited PS5 supplies, PS5 still won out on unit sales by dollars.
