Your non-gamer relatives might have lined up to snag a Wii on day one, but Nintendo's Switch is apparently an even bigger deal.
The new console and its marquee launch title -- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild-- both broke launch records for Nintendo in the Americas. We're just missing one thing: actual numbers.
SEE ALSO:There's a secret message in Nintendo's Switch Pro controller. Here's how to find it.Nintendo hasn't officially shared its launch weekend sales data for Switch or Zelda, but the "Best. Launch. Ever." assertion still comes from a reliable source: Nintendo of America boss, Reggie Fils-Aime. He spoke to Nick Wingfield of the New York Times, who shared the details from his forthcoming write-up on Twitter.
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Let's unpack.
Note that Fils-Aime's sales comparison -- via Wingfield -- highlights the first two days of each console's retail life. Switch launched on a Friday, but the Wii launched on a Sunday. So it's a case of Friday/Saturday sales versus Sunday/Monday sales.
That said, the Wii also launched at a much more favorable time of year: the 2006 holiday shopping season. Though even then, it faced competition in the PlayStation 3, which arrived roughly a week earlier.
In contrast, the Switch launched on March 3, 2017 without the competition of another new game console, but also without the holiday season sales advantage. The differing release timeframes and circumstances prevent an apples-to-apples comparison here.
It's fair to say the Switch is off to a strong start, but it's important to keep in mind the context of the Wii's launch when you're looking at this new "record" for Nintendo.
The situation is similar with Zelda, which is now Nintendo's best-selling standalone launch title -- meaning, not a pack-in game like Wii Sportswas -- over that same two-day post-launch period.
There's little doubt that sales are good. If you're buying a Switch, it's probably for just one game. It's fair to speculate that Nintendo is seeing somewhere around -- or even higher than -- a 90 percent attach rate for Switch buyers that also pick up Zelda.
The game's success is likely propelled in part by all the rave reviews, but that's not the most important factor here. The biggest driver of early Zeldasales? There's very little else for Switch owners to choose from.
As of March 7, there are only nine games listed for sale in the Switch eShop. Three of those come from Nintendo -- Zelda, 1-2-Switchand Snipperclips-- two of them are Shovel Knight, and one (Fast RMX) is an indie racing game. The other two are re-releases of games that already existed elsewhere: I Am Setsunaand Just Dance 2017.
Zelda's record-setting launch sales toppled Super Mario 64, one of the two games that launched alongside the Nintendo 64 in 1996. Yes, that's fewer games than the Switchhas at launch. But Nintendo sales are driven, primarily, by Nintendo fans.
Think about the length of time that record stood. Mario 64has been Nintendo's top-selling launch title for more than 20 years. The Nintendo consoles released since then -- the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U -- all launched with many more games to choose from.
In many ways, Switch reverts to the N64 strategy of delivering quality over quantity. And Zeldagets a major sales boost for being the only marquee Nintendo title in the Switch launch line-up. If a Nintendo fan is picking up a Switch on March 3 or 4, they're almost certainly getting Zeldawith it.
There's one other factor that may have boosted Zelda's sales win: it's not a Switch exclusive. Breath of the Wildlaunched for Switch andWii U on March 3. Fils-Aime might have been referring only to Switch Zeldasales in his reference to the Mariorecord... but it's not clear.
Which leads us to one, important caveat on all of this: without Nintendo's actual sales figures, we can only speculate. Nintendo has only confirmed that Wingfield's characterization of Fils-Aime's comments is accurate, with the added promise that "detailed numbers will be shared in the future."
Here's what a Nintendo spokesperson had to say:
Nintendo of America confirms that Friday-Saturday sales in the America's for Nintendo Switch were the highest for the first two days of sales for any system in Nintendo’s history. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildalso enjoyed a positive response with amazing review scores, and is the best-selling launch title in Nintendo’s history in that same two-day initial time period.
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