The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Sold More Units Than The Switch
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the most successful launch title of all time, at least judging by the game's attach rate.
According to numbers gathered by the NPD Group (an organization that tracks video game sales), and repeated by Nintendo in a press release, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sold more than 925,000 units on the Nintendo Switch in North America. That's very good, especially considering that the Switch itself only sold 906,000 units. Consumers bought another 460,000 copies of Breath of the Wild for the Wii U.
Why did Breath of the Wild sell more copies than the system that runs it? Nintendo has a theory. "This may be attributed to people who purchased both a limited edition of the game to collect and a second version to play," Nintendo said. Although some fans also argue that the limited supply of the Switch might have something to do with it. It doesn't hurt that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the current frontrunner for game of the year, and could be one of the very best games of all time.
All-in-all, the first month for the Switch was a big success for Nintendo, which confirmed earlier reports that the Switch "has sold faster in its launch month than any other video game system in Nintendo history." While the system's main competitors moved more units in their first months on the market (both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One sold more than two million copies in their first three weeks), Nintendo notes that the Switch released "in a nontraditional month for a console launch." Both Sony and Microsoft released their consoles in November, right in time for the holiday retail surge. The supply issues of the Switch probably played a role here, too.
The Switch sold another 565,000 units in Japan during its launch window. While European numbers aren't available, Nintendo must be very close to meeting or surpassing its sales target, which estimated that the Switch would move two million units worldwide.