The Switch sold more games last year than any Nintendo console in history

The Switch sold more games in the financial year 2021 than any other Nintendo console in history.

Nintendo revealed its impressive software sales in a financial report released Tuesday. Most of the heavy-lifting was done by first-party Nintendo games launched in the company's 2021 fiscal year: Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl shifted a combined 14.65 million copies, while Pokemon Legends: Arceus sold 12.64 million. Then there's Mario Party Superstars, which sold almost 7 million copies, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, which sold almost 4 million.

However, Nintendo also reported plenty of success with older games that continue to sell like hot cakes. For example, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold about 10 million copies last year, while Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold 6 million happy little island getaways.

Nintendo also reported a bump in sales from third-party publishers resulting in 39 games selling over a million units each last year. Overall, software sales were up 1.8% year-on-year to 235 million copies sold, making the Switch's 2021 financial year software sales the highest of any Nintendo platform ever.

Despite the software success, there was a considerable drop in hardware sales from the year before. Nintendo said that it sold 23 million Switch consoles in the 2021 financial year. That's an impressive figure compared to PS5 and Xbox Series X sales in the same timeframe, but it's a 20% drop from Switch's 2020 hardware sales. Nintendo explained that this can be attributed to "shortages of semiconductor components and other parts."

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