X

Nintendo Switch Sales Take a Hit During a Challenging 2021

The video game giant sold 23 million Switch consoles from April 2021 to March 2022, down 20% from the preceding fiscal year.

Attila Tomaschek
Attila is a Staff Writer for CNET, covering software, apps and services with a focus on virtual private networks. He is an advocate for digital privacy and has been quoted in online publications like Computer Weekly, The Guardian, BBC News, HuffPost, Wired and TechRepublic. When not tapping away on his laptop, Attila enjoys spending time with his family, reading and collecting guitars.
Expertise Attila has nearly a decade's worth of experience with VPNs and has been covering them for CNET since 2021. As CNET's VPN expert, Attila rigorously tests VPNs and offers readers advice on how they can use the technology to protect their privacy online and
See full bio
Attila Tomaschek
Nintendo Switch controllers

Nintendo Switch sales were down 20% from last year, but software sales hit a record 235.07 million units sold.

 James Martin/CNET

Nintendo sold 23.06 million Switch consoles -- Nintendo Switch, Switch OLED and Switch Lite models -- from April 2021 through March 2022, the video game giant reported Tuesday. The company's overall sales numbers during the fiscal year, which ended March 31, were driven largely by sales of the games Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl reaching a combined 14.65 million units and Pokémon Legends: Arceus hitting 12.64 million units.

Older titles, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (9.94 million units) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (6.01 million units), also continued to contribute significantly to Nintendo's sales numbers.

However, Switch console sales were down 20% year over year, according to Nintendo. This was partly because of the popularity of the March 2020 release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons driving hardware sales the previous fiscal year, and partly due to semiconductor and other component shortages this past fiscal year. Software sales, on the other hand, grew 1.8% year over year, to 235.07 million units, which accounted for the highest annual software sales figure ever posted for a Nintendo platform, the company said. 

Nintendo's net sales for the fiscal year came in at 1.69 trillion Yen (about $12.97 billion), down 3.6% from the preceding year.  

See also