Kirby takes the cake in Nintendo’s first quarter of the new financial year

It’s the end of the first financial quarter for Nintendo’s 22/23 financial year, which means we have a glut of new information to sort through, right from the horse’s mouth. Q1 is generally a fairly quiet quarter, with most of Nintendo’s business coming from Q3 and Q4, but there’s still some big wins for a few games in this latest set of data, and some surprising omissions, too.

Starting off with hardware, and once again the OLED has shown to be more popular than either of the other two models on sale. The OLED accounted for almost 50% of Switches shipped, at 1.52m units shipped in the quarter, compared to 0.59m Switch Lite units and 1.32m “standard” red box Switch units. The total Switch units shipped is actually down a little over 20% compared to the same quarter last year, but given the skyrocketing cost of living and other economic pressures, that’s to be expected.

On the software side of things, the headlining news is that Kirby and the Forgotten Land shipped a further 1.88m units in the last quarter, bringing the total up to 4.53m units shipped. Nintendo also outlines that the sell-through is above 4m units, which makes it the best-selling game in the series to date. Nintendo Switch Sports did reasonably well, too, shipping 4.84m units in its first quarter on sale – not exactly a blockbuster, but a respectable effort, and one we’d expect to experience a big boost in sales come holiday time.

Other than that, there’s not much else to write home about. Very few first party titles sold over a million units this quarter, as you’ll see from the lists below, so a lot of the data we usually work with hasn’t been updated. Pokémon Legends: Arceus, notably, has not shipped a million or more units in its second quarter on sale, representing a pretty sudden drop for a game that, frankly, is about to have its legs cut off entirely by Scarlet and Violet’s news cycle, which seems poised to rev up shortly. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes also fell short of the 1 million unit mark in its first quarter on sale, but given it’s a fairly niche spinoff of a fairly niche series in the first place, that’s not all that surprising either.

Switch Hardware Updates

Nintendo Switch total: 111.08m (Up from 107.65m)
– Nintendo Switch: 84.77m (Up from 83.45m)
– Nintendo Switch Lite: 18.99m (Up from 18.40m)
– Nintendo Switch OLED Model: 7.32m (Up from 5.80m)

Switch Software Million Sellers Updates

Last Quarter Additions

• Nintendo Switch Sports – 4.84m
• Mario Strikers Battle League Football – 1.91m
• Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes – No data given
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land –  4.53m

Pokémon

• Pokémon Legends: Arceus – No new data (12.64m last qtr)
• Pokemon Sword and Shield – 24.50m (up from 24.47m last qtr)
• Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl – 17.79m (up from 14.65m last qtr)
• Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee – 14.66m (up from 14.53m last qtr)
• New Pokémon Snap – No new data (2.4m last qtr)
  • This figure only counts outside of Japan, as sales for Japan are counted under The Pokémon Company.

Evergreen Million Sellers

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 46.82m (up from 45.33m last qtr)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 39.38m (Up from 38.62m last qtr)
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 28.82m (up from 28.17m last qtr)
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 27.14m (up from 26.55m last qtr)
• Super Mario Odyssey –  23.93m (up from 23.50m last qtr)
• Super Mario Party – 18.06m (up from 17.78m  last qtr)
• Ring Fit Adventure – 14.54m (up from 14.09m last qtr)
• Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury – No new data (9.435m last qtr)
• Mario Party Superstars – No new data (6.88m last qtr)
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD – No new data (3.91m last qtr)
• Metroid Dread – No new data (2.90m last qtr)
• Mario Golf: Super Rush – No new data (2.35m last qtr)
• Miitopia – No new data (1.68m last qtr)
• Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain – No new data (Last reported 1.59m)
• Warioware: Get It Together! – No new data (Last reported 1.27m)
• Game Builder Garage – No new data (Last reported 1.06m)
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land – 4.53m (Up from 2.65m)