Nintendo has sold over 700 million consoles worldwide since 1983, new sales data has revealed.
Thanks to Gamenesia, who took the time to compile the data, we have sales data for all of Nintendo’s major console releases from 1983, including the Famicon, all the way up to the present day.
As of June 30th, 2018, Nintendo has sold just over 300 million home consoles. The Nintendo Wii has been Nintendo’s best-performing home console commercially, accounting for over a third of all sales. The NES comes in at a distant second, with the SNES third with 61.91 million and 49.10 million consoles sold, respectively.
Nintendo Home Console Sales (all numbers in millions)
- NES — 61.91
- SNES — 49.10
- N64 — 32.93
- GameCube — 21.74
- Wii — 101.63
- Wii U — 13.56
- Switch — 19.67
- Total: 300.54
*credit Gamenesia
While Nintendo’s home consoles have always been popular, it is in fact the company’s handheld devices which have proven to be the most popular with consumers. Since the release of the Game Boy in 1989, over 427 million handheld consoles have been sold.
The Nintendo DS accounts for the most sales with 154 million units sold in total. The Game Boy, including the Game Boy Color, was the second best selling handheld device with 118 million sales.
Nintendo Handheld Sales (all numbers in millions)
- Game Boy — 118.69 (includes Color)
- Game Boy Advance — 81.51
- DS — 154.02
- 3DS — 72.89
- Total: 427.11
*credit Gamenesia
When all sales of Nintendo consoles are combined, the company has sold 727.65 million consoles in 35 years.
Sony, on the other hand, has sold over 500 million PlayStation consoles since releasing the PlayStation 1 in 1994. As for Microsoft, it’s hard to put an exact figure on the number of consoles they have sold since launching the original Xbox in 2001 with estimates ranging from 118 million to just under 140 million.
