As always, the latest NPD data also gives us some hardware news. It turns out that the Nintendo Switch sales data that we learned about earlier today was only a small taste of just how well the console did this past month. VentureBeat said bluntly that “Nintendo Switch sales are off the charts”. We already learned earlier today that the console was the highest-selling console in December, as well as 2018 as a whole, for the United States. However, according to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella, the Switch “generated the highest December-month hardware dollar sales for a single platform since the Nintendo Wii in December 2009. And it achieved the highest December unit sales for a single platform since December 2010″.
There was even more good news for Nintendo‘s console. Piscatella also said that the Switch “ends 2018 as the year’s best-selling hardware platform in both units and dollars. Annual unit and dollar sales of Nintendo Switch are the highest annual total for any hardware platform since the PlayStation 4 in 2015”. Even the Switch Pro Controller had a great month. It was “December’s best-selling accessory in dollar sales”, and “the PS4 DualShock 4 Black, Switch Pro Controller, and the Xbox One S Wireless Controller White were the three best-selling accessories of 2018 in dollar spend”. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is highly credited for Nintendo’s December sales.
As for the industry as a whole, Piscatella confirmed that “for the 2018 year, hardware spending increased 8 percent to $5.1 billion. Console hardware sales drove the growth, as PlayStation 4, plug-n-play devices, Switch, and Xbox One all experienced year-on-year gains”.
It’d be great if it did BETTER than the Wii back in 2009. Overall, the Wii sucks.
I liked the Wii but yea, it’s library of games was… an issue lol
What about Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart, and Wii sports? I think they’re great Wii games. The Wii Sports Resort was awesome! But I get it, everybody needs to move on.
The Wii did have some great games but most were made by Nintendo and any great third party. non-casual games were considered hidden gems like Pandora’s Tower.
I liked it, too, at the time. But now I just loathe it as it made Nintendo egotistical which ended up giving us the Wii U. Nintendo’s Seal of Quality sadly took a nose-dive after the GCN.
It doesn’t. The Wii had some wonderful games and very interesting hardware. Overall, certainly more than the Gamecube, which was just a “Nintendo 64 2” of sorts. Obviously, the Wii did have a lot of casual games, but come on, it was certainly no bad console. If it were, it wouldn’t be one of the most sold consoles of all time.
Yeah. My bad. Sales DEFINITELY mean something was good. That must be why everyone considers Call of Duty one of the best franchises ever made since it makes as much money as Mario & Pokemon. *sarcasm*
Wii had maybe 20 to 30 good games while the hundreds of others were shitty shovelware. Only casuals & hardcore Nintendo fans stuck with the system after 2 or 3 years. Meanwhile, everyone else couldn’t get far enough away from the system. So yes. The Wii WAS a bad console for many, many people. In this case, majority rules & they ruled the Wii was crap. Most people ended up using their Wii for exercise & Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services. If you found the Wii enjoyable, good for you. But you guys were in the minority.
Millions & millions of sales don’t mean shit if only a couple thousand people still used it for games.
The saving grace for me on Wii was Monster Hunter Tri.
Oh yeah! That, too. If not for MH Tri, Xenoblade, Last Story, Pandora’s Tower, Zelda: Skyward Sword, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, & both Endless Ocean games, I’d probably hate the Wii even more than I do now.
Oh & Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King was a pretty fun game. I wish they’d do a remake of it but let you actually go to dungeons & such WITH a party of your own. They could call the remake My Life as a Warrior King. So not only would you build the town but you’d go on adventures & battle, too. Oh & the town should be made much, much bigger. Just a fan wish that will most likely never come true. *sigh*
Yeah, those games on Wii deserves an HD Remake. Capcom was smart enough to port MH Tri over to 3DS and Wii U and it was instantly better. Xenoblade would be nice on Switch, but and we need a Prime HD Trilogy.
Shit! Forgot to mention Metroid Prime Trilogy, too!
Ok, now developers, give us big games now, come on, you have absolutely no excuse at all now.
uhhh except for the incredibly large difference in specs between it and other systems. That’s not even an excuse though. It’s just a reason.
You know, when publishers thought they could make money on the insane install base of Wii, PS360 games were crammed in to that with pretty satisfying results.
Gap between Switch and PS4 is nowhere as wide as the gap between Wii and PS360 was.
I don’t really recall that happening too much. I know their were certain series that were still being developed for PS2 throughout that time and Wii used those same assets though.
Looking at a list of games for the Wii, I’m assuming you might mean the Call of Duty games but those were reviewed poorly on the system, lacked a ton of features, and sold to less than 1% of the Wii’s user base. As a result, most of the top games from that time period didn’t come to Nintendo platforms until Wii U or Switch.
You’re correct that the gap between the Switch and PS4 is significantly smaller since they’re at least architecturally more similar but the gap is still large especially since environments have trended towards being more open and the Switch has a larger storage gap than the Wii had to the 360. And of course, the Switch’s online features are still about 10 years behind the competition so the appeal isn’t there for COD fans.
Satisfying results? Pfft. Spider-Man 3 on Wii was total shit as some of the stuff that was in the PS360 versions were nowhere to be found on the Wii version. I wouldn’t be surprised if dozens of other ports to Wii had these same issues.
“nintendo is doom” lol bet the haters are eating their words
Actually, they aren’t wrong. Nintendo is doomed. But so is everyone else. All things must end sooner or later, including us.
So poetic 😂
Excellent. The next step is: Return Paper Mario to its proper RPG self.
Agreed!
It’s unfortunate that the Wii got so much success. The Switch is superior in anything, especially with games. I remember that with the Wii I had nothing to play and sold it for an Xbox 360. Switch should be protagonist to Nintendo’s history, along with the Super Nintendo (a console that got so many gems even while not selling that much, maybe it was a bit costly back then).
The Wii had nothing to play ? What ?
There were two 3D Mario games (among the best to ever come out), two Zelda games, 3 Sonic games (one of which, Colors, is among the only good 3D ones), a 3D Metroid (and remasters of all previous ones), Smash, not to mention lots of indie gems like No More Heroes or Madworld, and, very important, the best virtual console yet (which means : almost all the SNES games, loads of N64 games etc.).
Mario (Galaxy) took one year. Smash was late too. I sit for half a year with Wii Sports and that tasteless Zelda game (the worst of the serie, probably), then I sold it for good attracted by Mass Effect, etc.
Sonic is, and will be, completely unattractive to me, and the Wii was too much similar to the GC in terms of graphics quality, by that time that graphics just looked ‘bare’. With the Nintendo Switch isn’t so much a problem because we have reached HD graphics, PS4 just provide better graphics, not ‘another world’ (like it was the Xbox 360 in comparison to the Wii), and it works as an handheld too.
You forgot Monster Hunter Tri xP
My Wii turned into a Netflix machine. That’s all it was worth after 2 or 3 years. It wasn’t til Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, & Pandora’s Tower released that it became a game machine again… for a time.
It wasn’t definitely the gaming machine for me. Aside from the newlty of the Wiimote (that wasn’t a bad idea) it offered a questionable library of games. We aren’t the only critics of this console, many shares similar feelings. It’s also normal that some people would have loved it, maybe the same who don’t really care at all about graphics. I do, in fact I’m pleased about the Switch that sports decent graphics (and would be happier with the next more powerful Switch 2, along with more graphically beautiful games. I’ll be disappointed, like you I suppose, if there will be not much difference from Switch to Switch 2, like we have seen from GC to Wii).
Nothing wrong with liking the Wii for what it was if you got enjoyment out of the crap library. And no matter how much certain Nintendo fans try to scream & denounce it, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with caring about graphics. In fact, they secretly care about graphics, too, since I’m sure they loved the graphics of past systems at the time they were the best they could have been back then. And if you are a retro gamer & actually like the NES or SNES styled games for the way they look, that’s caring about graphics, too, honestly.
You’re damn right that a lot of Nintendo fans try to act like they don’t care about graphics. I remember pre-launch people kept arguing with me to no end that the Switch was a Xbox One or PS4 in a handheld. I said it wasn’t going to be a huge leap over the Wii U and as soon as they saw some of the games for it, they changed their tune. Then graphics didn’t matter anymore and it was all about claiming that the Switch changes the way people play video games… even though it doesn’t… at all.
Fantastic. :)
Now talk about Fire Emblem: Three Houses already! I’m anxious!
Yeah, I hope that they don’t delay it one more time
Where are the trolls on this one ?? 😂😂😂
Good job, Switch. You’re doing great.
The big console sales driver this year will probably be Animal Crossing. That one usually churns out some pretty big sales numbers and hits a market that is pretty different than the folks that have already bought in for Smash Bros, Zelda, Splatoon, etc.