SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 5 — Nintendo’s hybrid home and portable games machine, the Switch, goes six months as Japan’s best-selling console.
The Nintendo Switch is expected to pass 5 million sales in its home territory of Japan this week.
Released in March 2017, the Switch is a portable console with detachable controllers, yet can be plugged into a TV or, through the Nintendo Labo line, placed within self-assembly cardboard controller of various kinds.
Sitting between high-end home consoles and portable smartphones and tablets, the Switch has nonetheless found an appreciative audience if sales numbers are anything to go by.
In comparison, Sony’s popular PlayStation 4 had accumulated 6.9m Japanese sales in the four years, five months between a regional February 2014 launch and July 2018.
In other words, the Switch has sold 71per cent of the PlayStation 4’s Japanese total in 32per cent of the time.
(Microsoft stopped reporting worldwide Xbox One sales in November 2014, while Japanese industry analyst Media Create, which published the Switch figure, has Japanese lifetime sales of the Xbox One at less than 100,000 units.)
Internationally, the Switch has some way to go to catch the PlayStation 4.
July 2018’s corporate figures had the Switch’s lifetime retail shipments at an impressive 19.6m, by which time Sony was reporting 81.2m worldwide sales of the PS4; here, the Switch has achieved 24per cent of total PlayStation 4 sales in 30per cent of the time.
However, Nintendo has previously gone on record to say that it foresees greater Switch sales in this, the console’s second year. It is targeting 20m unit sales between April 2018 and March 2019 for a total of 37m units shifted.
That 20 million unit figure is on par with PlayStation’s December 2016-17 performance; meanwhile, speculation surrounds Sony’s plans to develop and announce a PlayStation 5, which could be introduced in 2019 for a 2020 launch. — AFP-Relaxnews
