Nintendo Switch software sales spike by 40% in FY2020

Nintendo's latest financials show big growth in both hardware sales and software adoption, leading to tremendous Switch growth across the board.

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As Switch hardware breaks 55 million sales worldwide, the system has pushed many more times that in software purchases. Nintendo sold 168.72 million Switch games both physically and digitally in FY2020, up 42.31% from last year.

Total cumulative Nintendo Switch software sales skyrockted by 89% in FY2020 to an incredible 356.24 million units, inching it closer to the 3DS' mighty handheld mark. Right now the Switch is number eight in Nintendo's total software sales charts, and will surpass the Game Boy Advance, 3DS, and SNES next year.

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First-party Nintendo games made up a huge 82.8% of all software sales for the year, or 139.7 million units. Basically, people are still buying Switch hardware to play first-party games. Adoption of first-party titles was driven by heavy-hitters like Pokemon Sword and Shield as well as Animal Crossing: New Horzions.

Animal Crossing is now the fastest-selling Switch game of all time with 11 million sales in just 11 days. That's more than Splatoon 2 sold in 140 weeks on the market.

Digital adoption also rose in FY2020, likely due to the coronavirus stay-at-home quarantines. Consumers bought 57.3 million digital Switch games in the yearly period, representing roughly 34% of total game sales.