Video Game Sales with Paul Gale Network

Hi everyone, Nintendo just released their massive quarter financial results, representing hardware and software data from October 1st, 2021 – December 31st, 2021 (their Q3) and with this information, I am happy to present you with Nintendo’s All-time hardware and software units sold!

Hardware:
1) Nintendo DS – 154.02m
2) Game Boy – 118.69m
3) Nintendo Switch – 103.54m
4) Wii – 101.63
5) Game Boy Advance – 81.51m
6) Nintendo 3DS – 75.94m
7) Nintendo Entertainment System – 61.91m
8) Super Nintendo Entertainment System – 49.10m
9) Nintendo 64 – 32.93m
10) Nintendo GameCube – 21.74m
11) Wii U – 13.56m
12) Virtual Boy – .77+m (This is the last Virtual Boy figure provided, though it did sell after. How much exactly is unknown.)

Total Nintendo hardware from the above consoles = 815,340,000 (815.34 million)

Color TV = 2m
Game & Watch (This is not including the recent Mario and Zelda editions) = 43.4m
NES and SNES Classic = 13+m (NES Classic’s last released, individual figure was 3.6m and SNES Classic’s last released, individual figure was 5.28m, yet Nintendo did state that both combined have sold more than 13m. (That was the last update, though it is likely higher at this point, even if neither have been sold in a while as of February, 2022.)

Software:
1) Nintendo DS – 948.76m
2) Wii – 921.85m
3) Nintendo Switch – 766.41m
4) Game Boy – 501.11m
5) Nintendo Entertainment System – 500.01m
6) Nintendo 3DS – 387.99m
7) Super Nintendo Entertainment System – 379.06m
8) Game Boy Advance – 377.42m
9) Nintendo 64 – 224.97m
10) Nintendo GameCube – 208.57m
11) Wii U – 103.45m
12) Virtual Boy – 1m (approximate) (This was a number loosely provided to me and could be under/over the actual.)

Total software sold from the above Nintendo consoles = 5,320,600,000 (5.3206 billion)

Stats:
Famicom (Japan’s NES) released on July 15th, 1983.
From July, ’83 to December, ’21: 38 years and 5 months (38.416 years) have passed, with 815,340,000 consoles being sold.

This is an average of 21,223,969 Nintendo consoles being sold per year during that time.

North America didn’t get NES until October 15th, 1985, with other regions receiving NES in 1986, 1987, and 1993. If we just use the North American NES release, from October, ’85 to December, ’21: 36 years and 2 months (36.166 years) have passed, with 815,340,000 consoles being sold (including Japan’s total from their 2 year and 3 month head start), then the average goes up to 22,544,378 Nintendo consoles being sold per year during that time.

Technically, the first figure is the correct one, but it can’t be denied that the second average is also a viable one, as the Nintendo Entertainment System wasn’t out globally for a while after Japan’s Famicom release.

Software average from July, 1983 to December, 2021: 5 billion, 320.6 million over that time = 138,499,583 games sold per year.

Software average from October, 1985 to December, 2021: 5 billion, 320.6 million (including Japan’s total from their 2 year and 3 month head start) = 147,116,075 games sold per year. Once again, the first figure is the correct one, but the second is still viable.

Update:

One other stat!

6.5 to 1 is the ratio of software to hardware across Nintendo’s entire history! (Based off the 5,320,600,000 units of software and 815,340,000 units of hardware that have been sold as of December 31st, 2021.)

This was a lot of fun and I hope you enjoyed the breakdown of Nintendo over the years. Any type of comment is appreciated and though somewhat off-topic, but cool nonetheless, I just wanted to share my Super Mario Pool Mosaic with those of you that might not have seen it before.

And one other cool video for long time Nintendo fans, is my history with the company from 2000-2015 (one day I’ll update it through the most current year):

Thank you all for checking out Video Game Sales with Paul Gale Network. Have a great one!