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Wii sold an astronomical number of consoles in its lifetime, moving 101 – 102 million units to push it into the position of the fifth best-selling console of all time (though there is some speculation that it’s actually the fourth best-selling console of all-time given that the lifetime sales of the PlayStation are believed to be around 102.5 million units, but that number hasn’t been totally cemented). However, despite the odds and the doubt that Nintendo would be able to bounce back from the sales performance of Wii U, Switch sales have surpassed Wii sales in the same amount of time on the market post-launch.
According to a slide from the slide deck GameStop released in conjunction with their 2017 first quarter earnings call, in the first two months on the market in the U.S. Wii sold 1.1 million units while Switch sold 1.2 million units. Even with the constrained console supply, that’s an increase of 10 percent over Wii sales in the same time frame (and again, that’s in the U.S. alone), though it is worth noting that Wii also experienced console constraints at launch.
These numbers shouldn’t downplay Wii’s importance in the video game industry nor the impact it left. But it does emphasize how huge Switch demand really is and makes one wonder how Switch sales might end up comparing to Wii in its lifetime.
Source: BGR
