Earlier this week GameStop reported its quarterly earnings, and one of the highlights was that they sold more copies of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild than they did Nintendo Switch consoles. At a call with its investors, GameStop revealed that it had sold more than one copy of Zelda for every Nintendo Switch unit sold.
According to GameStop’s management team:
“The bright spot within software was that we sold more than one copy of the Switch version of Zelda for every Switch console we sold, indicating that consumers are coming to GameStop for additional games and accessories.”
The Legend of Zelda was chosen as the launch title for the Nintendo Switch when it officially launched on March 3 – almost three months ago. Since then, various sources have reported different sales numbers. The most comprehensive sources show that there were 2.76 million copies of Zelda sold for the Nintendo Switch console, while 1.08 million copies were sold for the Nintendo Wii U in 2017.
Overall, however, The Legend of Zelda game series has sold over 75 million copies since it was launched back in 1986 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console, first in Japan and then in the United States in 1987.
Earlier this month, it a Wall Street Journal report showed that The Legend of Zelda could soon be coming to Android and iOS devices later this year, right after the release of the delayed Animal Crossing.
The Zelda franchise is still going strong after 30 years, and doesn’t seem to be losing any steam despite its age. That’s good news for Nintendo, but also great news for the gaming software industry, which is currently going through a phase shift from physical to DLC, or downloadable content.
The move to use Zelda as a launch title for the Nintendo Switch was a sound decision based on the the game’s performance over the years, and in its many forms. Today, more and more titles are making their way into the Nintendo Switch eShop, will several popular and Indie titles slated for 2017.
Nintendo is expected to release at least two more consoles this year, the Mini SNES Classic Edition and the 2DS XL that adds to the handheld family of gaming systems from Nintendo.
Thanks for visiting! Would you do us a favor? If you think it’s worth a few seconds, please like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter. It would mean a lot to us. Thank you.
