Nintendo Sold $250 Million in Products From Black Friday to Cyber Monday in U.S.

By Brian Crecente

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – A strong holiday showing from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday in the United States saw a 45% increase in sales over the same period last year for Nintendo, with the company selling through more than $250 million in products over the period. The Nintendo Switch is now the best-
selling Nintendo console in U.S. history for that five-day period, surpassing even Wii system sales, the company announced Wednesday.

It was, the company said, the best-selling week ever for the console in the United States. Nintendo also noted that 
according to Adobe Analytics, was among the most-purchased items online on Thanksgiving Day and the overall top-selling video game product online for the Black Friday-Cyber Monday time period.

The big numbers should certainly help push the console toward Nintendo’s overall goal for the financial year of 38 million units sold, though analysts are still predicting it will fall just short, hitting about 35 million, according to Bloomberg . In releasing sales figures for the period, Nintendo focused on the U.S. only and didn’t provide any updated global numbers. Nintendo stock hit a five year high of $58.45 a share this year, only to shed more than 40 percent of its value this month, with a year-low of $33.90. The stock closed at $36.10 today.

Nintendo notes in its press release that those numbers don’t include the release of the upcoming “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” though, as we’ve noted in the past, that franchise sells well but isn’t the sort of massive hit that the company has in its Mario Kart series.

While the Nintendo Switch accounted for a chunk of the $250 million in sales, the company also saw earnings through the family of systems, retro systems like Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition and Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition, as well as all Nintendo-produced games and accessories.

Total U.S. hardware sales for Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday increased 45 percent over the same period in 2017, according to Nintendo.

Here’s a rundown of what Nintendo said about its hardware sales from those five days.

Nintendo Switch

• Nintendo Switch hardware sales grew 115 percent compared to the same period in 2017.
• Lifetime sales of Nintendo Switch, which is entering only its second holiday season, have reached more than 8.2 million units.
• Sales of first-party games, including digital downloads, topped 1 million units Nov. 22-26, beating 2017’s totals by 78 percent.
• Nintendo Switch games “Pokémon: Let’s Go,” “Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!” have hit combined U.S. sales of more than 1.5 million units since their Nov. 16 launch.
• “Super Mario Party” surpassed lifetime U.S. sales of 1 million units, becoming the fastest-selling game in the Mario Party series and the fifth million-selling first-party Nintendo Switch game in the U.S. alone, joining “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,” “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” “Super Mario Odyssey” and “Splatoon 2.”

Nintendo 3DS

• The total installed base for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems has hit 22 million.
• After 12 months of availability, lifetime combined sales of the “Pokémon Ultra Sun” and “Pokémon Ultra Moon” games crossed 2.2 million.

Classic Gaming Systems

• The Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition system surpassed lifetime sales of 2.5 million.
• The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition system surpassed lifetime sales of 2 million.