When the COCID-19 pandemic hit and drove people into their homes, many found refuge in the world of gaming. Even those who weren’t avid gamers turned to the hobby as watching shows over streaming services lost its touch. It should be no surprise then that sales in the gaming industry have spiked over the course of the past year. And Nintendo has been the biggest winner in the business, with the Switch hitting record sales. The hybrid console is now Nintendo’s second best-selling piece of hardware, behind only the Nintendo Wii.
Mat Piscatella, the executive director and video game industry advisor for the NPD group, shares statistics on the game industry every month. His latest thread of NPD group results shows the stellar sales performance of the Switch over the course of the last 12 months.
Specifically, the Switch’s total lifetime sales in dollars have beat out sales for the Nintendo DS, bumping it up to second in Nintendo’s history of hardware. Overall, the Switch is the seventh best-selling piece of gaming hardware of all time in the U.S., in terms of dollar sales.
Sales records for the Switch don’t stop there. The handheld console was also the best-selling console, both in units and dollar sales, in February. In fact, according to Piscatella, the last time a console sold so well in any given February was the Wii back in 2009.
The second highest-selling console last month was the PS5, which is currently the fastest-selling console in dollar sales, having been on the market for just four months.
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