Nintendo is a pretty big company, you might have heard of it. Now imagine how successful one product must be to make profits look staggering even for a company like Nintendo. That’s what the Nintendo Switch has been since its launch six years ago, and it’s not looking like the console will slow down anytime soon, not with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom breaking sales records.
We’re not breaking new ground by saying the Nintendo Switch has been a massive success, but massive for a regular gamer isn’t the same as massive for AAA companies. Now that we’ve seen some figures, we can confirm, the Switch has been a staggering money-making machine for Nintendo.
A report by tweaktown.com on May 12 that looks at Nintendo’s net earnings has revealed the company has made over $69 billion to date from the Switch. That number includes 125 million hardware units sold. The rest of the profit comes from software sales, the main portion of which of course is selling games.
Tears of the Kingdom’s launch on was arguably the most anticipated day in Zelda history. Breath of the Wild was a universal success, but it was also a sharp shift in Zelda’s design philosophy, so fans were eager to see where Nintendo takes the series next. The correct answer is to the top of the selling charts.
According to a report by gamesindustry.biz on May 15, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is far and away the best-selling game in the U.K. for 2023. While this is based purely on boxed sales, the fact Tears of the Kingdom is 50 percent ahead of second place, Hogwarts Legacy, is nonetheless impressive.
Related: All Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom amiibo and their rewards
Admittedly, comparisons to other platforms’ games aren’t too accurate due to Nintendo’s much higher boxed sales percentage, so let’s compare Nintendo with Nintendo. Tears of the Kingdom’s launch has been so successful that it’s already among the best-selling Zelda games of all-time days after its release. It has sold nearly three times more copies than Breath of the Wild did in its opening week. For perspective, that game has sold around 30 million copies to date.
