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Nintendo Switch overtakes SNES with more than 52 million sold

Nintendo Switch overtakes SNES with more than 52 million sold

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Surprise: Pokémon is a smash hit

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Nintendo had its strongest Switch quarter ever this holiday season, moving 10.81 million units to reach a total of 52.48 million sold as of the end of 2019. That means it’s now overtaken the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to become Nintendo’s third best-selling home console of all time behind the Wii and the NES. The 16-bit SNES was released in 1990 in Japan and the following year in North America, achieving a total of 49.1 million units sold worldwide.

Pokémon Sword and Shield were a huge hit over the holiday season, moving more than 16 million copies. That’s almost 4 million more than Super Smash Bros. Ultimate registered in its launch quarter a year ago, although Pokémon went on sale about three weeks earlier. Luigi’s Mansion 3 was another big success, selling over 5 million copies.

Nintendo’s Switch hardware sales are up about 15 percent year-on-year, which the company attributes partly to the launch of the cheaper Switch Lite while also noting the December launch in China — though that’s unlikely to be a major factor yet. The 3DS, meanwhile, is now officially a non-factor with just 260,000 consoles sold even in a holiday quarter.