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Nintendo software and hardware sales data from 1983 to present

Mario RPG is another good example. Everybody was wondering why it was missing from NSO for so long until the remake was announced just recently. I'm assuming we won't be seeing the original SMRPG on NSO for a while(if at all). That indicates a very low chance for a LttP remake.

The Oracle games seemed to be solid candidates for a remake but Nintendo dropping them on NSO a week ago rules them both out. That leaves Link Between Worlds and Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks as possibilities. Both games need to be updated anyway since the dual screen nature of the originals makes 'em more difficult than the average NSO rom dump.
I was actually talking about ALTTP remake on next Nintendo console. Can’t say it will have a link to the past on there for the snes. Feel like a link between worlds is way too early on the other hand it was on a handheld so HD version on next console would make a big difference on graphics.
 
I've updated OP with data as June 2023 (Nintendo IR) and December 2022 (CESA White Paper).
The financial data was updated as March 2023 (last full fiscal year).

A big thank goes to @Kiria
 
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Mario RPG is another good example. Everybody was wondering why it was missing from NSO for so long until the remake was announced just recently. I'm assuming we won't be seeing the original SMRPG on NSO for a while(if at all). That indicates a very low chance for a LttP remake.

The Oracle games seemed to be solid candidates for a remake but Nintendo dropping them on NSO a week ago rules them both out. That leaves Link Between Worlds and Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks as possibilities. Both games need to be updated anyway since the dual screen nature of the originals makes 'em more difficult than the average NSO rom dump.

I know its unrealistic as it would drive the price waaaaaay higher then Nintendo would consider but a switch 2 being basically a super switch but with a foldable touchscreen(not dual screen but can act like it) would be cool if only for DS/3DS NSO and Etrian Odyssey.
 
Maybe Splatoon 3 will not achieve to surpass the second game.
3 million copies is a huge gap.
Possibly. It's a little hard to tell for now, but it's worth considering that Splatoon 3 is still receiving support with Splatfests, updates, competitions, and will have major single player DLC that puts it in relatively major spotlight in Nintendo's marketing at some point. These are all things that can help it push a greater volume of units over time. Still, the game was also incredibly front-loaded with an exceptionally strong launch-especially in Japan- only to manage about 500K globally in the follow-up quarter.

We've recently seen through the CESA White Papers that Splatoon 2 sold almost half a million units in a year up the end of 2022, meaning it also managed to maintain a very strong tail. I can't say that'll be consistent of if it's a result of a sort of anticipation Dynamic regarding the sequel, but that factor also continues to keep the gap at bay.

It's something to keep an eye on, as you may be right. This phenomenon, I suspect, may potentially come to play with Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild as well. We'll see what things look like on the next report.
 
I've updated OP with data as June 2023 (Nintendo IR) and December 2022 (CESA White Paper).
The financial data was updated as March 2023 (last full fiscal year).

A big thanks goes to @Kiria
You hadn't updated Octopath Traveler. It was at 1.9M outside of Japan as of December 2021 already but hadn't been updated this year.
 
You hadn't updated Octopath Traveler. It was at 1.9M outside of Japan as of December 2021 already but hadn't been updated this year.
In CESA White Paper there isn't specified Octopath Traveler sales on Switch outside Japan.
 
It should be in the regions it was published by Nintendo. What is the source for that 1.85M number as of June 2021?
I'm seeing here on Perfectly-Nintendo that Octopath Traveler did 1.9 million as of the end of 2021 according to the CESA White Book 2022. The sources circle back to an Install Base poster named Grady. Seemingly, the relevant source links back to the post I quote below. The list is International + Domestic, but I don't know if that makes the article incorrect of if the publishing circumstances make that irrelevant to the recorded total.
I bought CESA 2022 today. Here are some updates for some Switch-only games (International + Domestic).

Splatoon 2: 13.13m
Super Mario 3D All-Stars 9.07m
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury: 8.85m
Mario Maker 2: 7.89m
Zelda: Link's Awakening: 6.08m
Mario Tennis Aces: 4.28m
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: 4.12m
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics: 4.00m
Kirby Stars Allies: 3.98m
Fire Emblem Three Houses: 3.82m
1-2-Switch: 3.63m
Paper Mario: Origami King: 3.34m
Yoshi's Crafted World: 3.01m
Arms: 2.66m
Xenoblade 2: 2.44m
Mario Golf: Super Rush 2.26m
Pikmin 3 Deluxe:2.23m
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker: 2.13m
Octopath Traveler: 1.90m
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX: 1.89m
Xenoblade 1: 1.68m
Miitopia: 1.63m
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit Mario Set / Luigi Set: 1.58m
MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3: The Black Order: 1.50m
Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 01: Variety Kit: 1.42m
Astral Chain: 1.28m
Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain: 1.28m
Dr Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch 1.20m
Bayonetta 2: 1.04m

Note: Will update the list with more later.
 
I'm seeing here on Perfectly-Nintendo that Octopath Traveler did 1.9 million as of the end of 2021 according to the CESA White Book 2022. The sources circle back to an Install Base poster named Grady. Seemingly, the relevant source links back to the post I quote below. The list is International + Domestic, but I don't know if that makes the article incorrect of if the publishing circumstances make that irrelevant to the recorded total.
I know all that. @Grady had bought the book last year. That's why I said it was at 1.9M as of December 2021.
 
I know all that. @Grady had bought the book last year. That's why I said it was at 1.9M as of December 2021.
I don't know if there's a particular aspect of it that precluded the number from being added where the International + Domestic aspect is concerned. If not, the reference is here, so Celine can adjust accordingly.
 
I don't know if there's a particular aspect of it that precluded the number from being added where the International + Domestic aspect is concerned. If not, the reference is here, so Celine can adjust accordingly.
That 1.9M number, like the 3.07M number of Age of Calamity is just from regions where Nintendo published it, which excludes Japan. So it's just overseas.
 
The thing about Octopath is that it moved from 2.9m to 3.2m total at the end of last year, but for some reason they didn't update the switch numbers for the game and it stayed at 1.9
 
Octopath Traveler' sell-in figure [for Switch] in the report has Square Enix as the assigned publisher which means it's global, also it isn't up to date.

As an example:
Octopath Traveler's total sell-in as December 2018 outside Japan (published by Nintendo): 1.08M
Octopath Traveler's total sell-in as December 2018 in CESA report (Square Enix as the publisher): 1.30M (be aware Square Enix rounds to 100K, not to 10K)

The purpose of this sales archive is to track the software published by Nintendo, in the case of Nintendo having the publishing duty only in specific regions then only sales in such regions are considered.
 
Mario RPG is another good example. Everybody was wondering why it was missing from NSO for so long until the remake was announced just recently. I'm assuming we won't be seeing the original SMRPG on NSO for a while(if at all). That indicates a very low chance for a LttP remake.

The Oracle games seemed to be solid candidates for a remake but Nintendo dropping them on NSO a week ago rules them both out. That leaves Link Between Worlds and Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks as possibilities. Both games need to be updated anyway since the dual screen nature of the originals makes 'em more difficult than the average NSO rom dump.
Given that the prevailing rumour for the next Fire Emblem game is a Genealogy of the Holy War remake, and that game is already on NSO in Japan; I don't think the presence of the original version of a Nintendo game on a console already precludes a remake being made - also see Metroid II: The Return of Samus being on 3DS VC for years before Metroid: Samus Returns was made.

Now saying that, I do think the Oracles are off the table for the time being due to how recent they've been added, but A Link to the Past has been on NSO for almost 4 years, and by the time Switch 2 is around that will likely be over 5 years.
 
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I think Minish Cap is a good entry for a remake.
Also, Four Swords is a game that few played, maybe Nintendo put some efforts and give the title another chance.
 
I think Minish Cap is a good entry for a remake.
Also, Four Swords is a game that few played, maybe Nintendo put some efforts and give the title another chance.
I don't see another remake right now. a new original Zelda by Grezzo makes sense to me
 
Over 60 million sellers, with 70 being basically a lock.

The whole top 20 being 10+ million sellers is all but confirmed, just waiting for Switch Sports to be updated in November or SMW first quarter in February.

The whole top 10 being 20+ mi is almost certain, with SMP and TotK almost there and SMW coming October.

The top 5 has already 4x 30+ million sellers and there's at least 3 games with chances of becoming a 5th (TotK, SV and SMW).

People keep looking at hardware sales, but as far as I'm concerned, software sales are the true MVP.
 
Over 60 million sellers, with 70 being basically a lock.

The whole top 20 being 10+ million sellers is all but confirmed, just waiting for Switch Sports to be updated in November or SMW first quarter in February.

The whole top 10 being 20+ mi is almost certain, with SMP and TotK almost there and SMW coming October.

The top 5 has already 4x 30+ million sellers and there's at least 3 games with chances of becoming a 5th (TotK, SV and SMW).

People keep looking at hardware sales, but as far as I'm concerned, software sales are the true MVP.
True! Despite Switch yearly sales being down every year since the 2020/2021 FY, software sales have remained far steadier. 2021/2022 actually sold more software than 2020/2021 despite hardware being down (of course 2021/2022 did have two Pokemon games release compared to 2020/2021 having none, but ACNH sold more in 2020/2021 than BDSP & Arceus will in their lifetime almost). 2022/2023 saw a drop in software sales but they were still over 200 million. Current forecast for 2023/2024 is 180 million which is a drop, but still a big number. Would not be surprised if it even gets revised up slightly.

As you point out, the best sellers list is incredibly impressive to the point where people are asking for Nintendo to do a top 20 instead of top 10.
 
To put my post above in perspective, here's a Wii+DS comparison:
Systems​
Total Published SW​
1+ mi sellers​
10+ mi sellers​
20+ mi sellers​
30+ mi sellers​
Wii​
373,33​
35​
9​
7​
4​
DS​
311,02​
54​
10​
3​
1​
Wii + DS​
684,35​
89​
19​
10​
5​
Switch​
540,54​
62 -> 70+?​
19 -> 21+​
7 -> 10+?​
4 -> 5?​

Not sure how much it will do before next gen releases and blurry the line, but I expect Switch alone to pass them in total too, even if we don't get that officially.


Bonus: Here is 6 years (+1Q) of Switch vs 30 years of the home consoles and the handhelds:
Systems​
Total Published SW​
1+ mi sellers​
10+ mi sellers​
20+ mi sellers​
30+ mi sellers​
TV-only​
886,69 (39.1%)​
173​
15​
10​
5​
Handheld-only​
837,51 (37.0%)​
166​
25​
6​
3​
Hybrid​
540,54 (23.9%)​
62​
19​
7​
4​
 
I think that the relevant comparisons are still the PS-platforms. Can the Switch sell more third-party games than either the PSOne or PS3? Can it follow's PS2's pace in overall software sales?

Those are the real metrics.
 
To put my post above in perspective, here's a Wii+DS comparison:
Systems​
Total Published SW​
1+ mi sellers​
10+ mi sellers​
20+ mi sellers​
30+ mi sellers​
Wii​
373,33​
35​
9​
7​
4​
DS​
311,02​
54​
10​
3​
1​
Wii + DS​
684,35​
89​
19​
10​
5​
Switch​
540,54​
62 -> 70+?​
19 -> 21+​
7 -> 10+?​
4 -> 5?​

Not sure how much it will do before next gen releases and blurry the line, but I expect Switch alone to pass them in total too, even if we don't get that officially.


Bonus: Here is 6 years (+1Q) of Switch vs 30 years of the home consoles and the handhelds:
Systems​
Total Published SW​
1+ mi sellers​
10+ mi sellers​
20+ mi sellers​
30+ mi sellers​
TV-only​
886,69 (39.1%)​
173​
15​
10​
5​
Handheld-only​
837,51 (37.0%)​
166​
25​
6​
3​
Hybrid​
540,54 (23.9%)​
62​
19​
7​
4​
Awesome compilation.
The Nintendo Switch is a beast.
 
Just for fun.
If we count the sales from the consoles launched in the 70´s + Game & Watch and the Nes mini and Super Nes mini, the total hardware sales, already surpass 900 million copies sold.
 
One question.
In the Wikipedia list of best selling Super Nintendo games, the title Tetris and Dr. Mario appears with 6 millions copies.
I think it´s a mistake. There´s any data about this game in particular?
 
One question.
In the Wikipedia list of best selling Super Nintendo games, the title Tetris and Dr. Mario appears with 6 millions copies.
I think it´s a mistake. There´s any data about this game in particular?

No it has not. It has not even managed to clear 1M otherwise there would have been an entry into the CESA papers as it is a Nintendo published game.
Also there is no way a repackaging of two NES games sold more than A Link to the Past and nearly on par with Street Fighter 2.

The source for that 6M is a random blog on gamezone, which is copied from digg, where you can't even access it anymore.
It looks like they took the sales of NES Tetris and Dr. Mario and averaged them to claim the SNES game sold that much.

The only concrete bit of data we have on that game seems to be a leak of NPD numbers in 95 which has it selling 17k in the month of March and 76k lifetime. It was 3 months on the market at that point.
 
No it has not. It has not even managed to clear 1M otherwise there would have been an entry into the CESA papers as it is a Nintendo published game.
Also there is no way a repackaging of two NES games sold more than A Link to the Past and nearly on par with Street Fighter 2.

The source for that 6M is a random blog on gamezone, which is copied from digg, where you can't even access it anymore.
It looks like they took the sales of NES Tetris and Dr. Mario and averaged them to claim the SNES game sold that much.

The only concrete bit of data we have on that game seems to be a leak of NPD numbers in 95 which has it selling 17k in the month of March and 76k lifetime. It was 3 months on the market at that point.
I removed the game from that list on Wikipedia. Kt's possible that someone there will ask for proof of it not being in the CESA Games White Papers. If that happens I will ask someone here for a photo of the page with the games that sold around 6M copies.
 
Thanks a lot!
There´s another game with some confuse numbers in the web.
Donkey Kong Country 2 for the GBA. Some sources claim sales above 1 million copies.
What´s the true?
 
I think that the relevant comparisons are still the PS-platforms. Can the Switch sell more third-party games than either the PSOne or PS3? Can it follow's PS2's pace in overall software sales?

Those are the real metrics.
Why would those be the real metric? It’s not like the third party support the switch received was anywhere close to the kind of support third parties gave to any of th ps home consoles, besides, there is basically no way to make those comparisons since Nintendo doesn’t share digital only numbers, maybe by revenue but still wouldn’t be a 1:1 comparison.
 
Why would those be the real metric? It’s not like the third party support the switch received was anywhere close to the kind of support third parties gave to any of th ps home consoles, besides, there is basically no way to make those comparisons since Nintendo doesn’t share digital only numbers, maybe by revenue but still wouldn’t be a 1:1 comparison.
We don't know about what the digital only titles sell, so it's better to leave them aside completely in this discussion.

So yes, it's not apples to apples but it's a fascinating comparison nonetheless. If the Switch doesn't reach those highs, nobody will care anyway.
 
Was Banjo-Tooie published by Nintendo in all regions? In 2008 some Rare producer said that it sold 3M copies, but here we have a number of 1.49M, which I assume comes from CESA. Hence why I'm asking about how the publishing situation was.
 
Was Banjo-Tooie published by Nintendo in all regions? In 2008 some Rare producer said that it sold 3M copies, but here we have a number of 1.49M, which I assume comes from CESA. Hence why I'm asking about how the publishing situation was.
I've seen no other publisher for the game other than Microsoft Game Studios for subsequent releases on their hardware after acquisition of Rare. Toshihiro Nagoshi was Producer on F-Zero GX and is alleged to have said that the game sold 1.5 million units in an interview with EDGE magazine as well, so I wouldn't take a potentially offhand statement years after the fact so seriously.

Additionally, Mark Betteridge was not a Producer on -or even credited in the development of- any pre-acquisition Banjo-Kazooie title that I've seen outside of Special Thanks in the case of Banjo-Pilot.
 
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I got into an edit war on Wikipedia over that Banjo-Tooie number once. It would be a lot harder to prove CESA white papers wrong than proving a random comment by a producer wrong.
 
I got into an edit war on Wikipedia over that Banjo-Tooie number once. It would be a lot harder to prove CESA white papers wrong than proving a random comment by a producer wrong.
I completely abandoned editing there. The standards for upholding guidelines on sourcing is so loose and the consequences of even years of blatant refusal to properly source claims are nonexistent. I've even gone back occasionally to things I've cleaned up and found unsubstantiated or misconceived claims put over actually sourced information again over time.
 
Then can you clarify this annotation?

EE73-D43-C-A19-A-4201-B149-58-E8429-C5986.jpg
 
Then can you clarify this annotation?

EE73-D43-C-A19-A-4201-B149-58-E8429-C5986.jpg
I just checked, the port section of the Japanese entry for the game also cites 2021CESAゲーム白書 as 1,020,000 (102万), so I'm not sure which getting what from where, but if someone does have access it might be worth looking. It does seem odd for so many late sales to appear though, since it is my understanding the download versions made available were all SuFami.
 
I just checked, the port section of the Japanese entry for the game also cites 2021CESAゲーム白書 as 1,020,000 (102万), so I'm not sure which getting what from where, but if someone does have access it might be worth looking. It does seem odd for so many late sales to appear though, since it is my understanding the download versions made available were all SuFami.
You'll note that every source that references CESA White Papers in that Wikipedia page is the very same one, pointing to the 2021 book. I don't know if there were updates or if the books include the entire back catalogue of data from prior consoles with each release, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were just a case of misguided source correction.

Taking a dig, I see edits in the page history that illustrate what might have happened. On the 25th of April, 2017, a user changed the page's original list layout to stop including sales by region, instead opting to source the total sales more comprehensively with a reference inclusive of the 2004 CESA White Paper alongside the organization's article, year, ISBN, and page numbers. At this point, all of the data in the OP for GBA title sales were precisely the same so far as I've seen.

The very next day on the 26th of April 2017, another user made two edits: the first moving the page to a newly titled one, and the next plainly removing all information in that specific reference outside of the words CESA White Paper and the link to the parent organization's article. It was on the 6th of December 2019 -over two years later- that someone noted that there was no ISBN and tagged the defaced sources accordingly. On the 15th of July, 2022, a less detailed update was made adding the ISBN for the 2021 CESA White Book without any particular detail. Indeed, it was just the latest book published at the time.

You can imagine that this means you might not find anything of worth because of this lack of specificity.

For the matter of Donkey Kong Country 2, it was only actually added to the Wikipedia page on the 12th of November 2020 and linked to the same vague White Paper reference as many of the other entries prior to the later ISBN addition. I can't speak for the Japanese page or the possibility of regional cross-referencing, which is one of the other pitfalls of the site.
 
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You'll note that every source that references CESA White Papers in that Wikipedia page is the very same one, pointing to the 2021 book. I don't know if there were updates or if the books include the entire back catalogue of data from prior consoles with each release, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were just a case of misguided source correction.

Taking a dig, I see edits in the page history of at least one user adding a single ISBN to all of the CESA 'sourced' titles. On the 25th of April, 2017, a user changed the page's list layout to stop including sales by region, instead opting to source the total sales more comprehensively with a reference inclusive of the 2004 CESA White Paper alongside the organization's article, year, ISBN, and page numbers. At this point, all of the sales data in the OP for GBA title sales were precisely the same so far as I've seen.

The very next day on the 26th of April 2017, another user made three edits: the first moving the page to a newly titled one, and the next plainly removing all information in that specific reference outside of the words CESA White Paper and the link to the parent organization's article. It was on the 6th of December 2019 -over two years later- that someone noted that there was no ISBN and tagged the defaced sources accordingly. On the 15th of July, 2022, a less detailed update was made adding the ISBN for the 2021 CESA White Book without any particular detail. Indeed, it was just the latest book published at the time.

You can imagine that this means you might not find anything of worth because of this lack of specificity.

For the matter of Donkey Kong Country 2, it was only actually added to the Wikipedia page on the 12th of November 2020 and just linked to the same vague White Paper reference as many of the other entries. I can't speak for the Japanese page or the possibility of regional cross-referencing, which is one of the other pitfalls of the site.
So basically if I'm to get this straight, it seems this Super64DD may have just added the GBA port of DKC2 at 38 on this list for whatever reason, cited the already existing "CESA White Paper" without an ISBN being used elsewhere on the page, then that got updated to the 2021 edition to add some legitimacy since citing the website which doesn't say anything is bad citation, and then in January this year (2+ years later) Ccc Okamoto may have seen it and just used that same citation that was made up.

Yeah, I've never been impressed with how Wikipedia handles these things.
 
So basically if I'm to get this straight, it seems this Super64DD may have just added the GBA port of DKC2 at 38 on this list for whatever reason, cited the already existing "CESA White Paper" without an ISBN being used elsewhere on the page, then that got updated to the 2021 edition to add some legitimacy since citing the website which doesn't say anything is bad citation, and then in January this year (2+ years later) Ccc Okamoto may have seen it and just used that same citation that was made up.

Yeah, I've never been impressed with how Wikipedia handles these things.
That just about lines up with my assumption of what might have happened, yes. I'm a little curious about where that fairly specific number came from, but I'm otherwise unsurprised that this sort of muddle would come from there.
 
Then can you clarify this annotation?

EE73-D43-C-A19-A-4201-B149-58-E8429-C5986.jpg
Why should I clarify the act of others?

If it's not in opening post it means it isn't there [in the books], especially for a game so old that mistakes from my part are assured to be fixed (because the compiling went through multiple iterations).

This Nintendo sales archive is ongoing for nearly a decade now but the data collection started years earlier, back then (2014) I decided to take the effort to make it public to dispel ignorance on the subject and so that people truly interested in understanding Nintendo could have an extensive set of data to back up their reasoning.
Nintendo is special.
 
Yeah, I've never been impressed with how Wikipedia handles these things.
People have short memory on how bad the situation was on Wikipedia for even basic stuff like console HW total sales for companies that didn't make readily available such data on their official website (basically every deceased console manufacturer).
The pages were compiled and managed by clueless people who didn't care for reliable data and sources and had no idea what they were talking about (taking as trustable shitty articles just because it was on a "big" website like GamePro, circular references, going for regional sell-through estimates and then adding up numbers without understanding that what they should have researched was only worldwide sell-in data from the manufacturer).
Those people were happy to accept every dogshit reference if it was favourable to their bias.

The fixes came later, after more knowledgable people step in on the subject back on GAF around 2015.
 
I just checked, the port section of the Japanese entry for the game also cites 2021CESAゲーム白書 as 1,020,000 (102万), so I'm not sure which getting what from where, but if someone does have access it might be worth looking. It does seem odd for so many late sales to appear though, since it is my understanding the download versions made available were all SuFami.
Its not in there. I own the 2021 paper.
Donkey Kong Land 3 is in the at 1.03M for regular Game Boy so maybe someone made a mistake there.
 
Why should I clarify the act of others?
You’re the one who quoted me to begin with, so I don’t think my follow up was unreasonable. In any case, it’s been laid out pretty clearly that this is probably an error of some kind.
 
Maybe you @Celine or someone else know: Are there any WW numbers for sales of Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS. I'm currently updating my Nintendo-numbers with a column for "systems" and noticed that Samus Returns doesn't have any sales number. Maybe I missed it. Thx
 
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