No longer the 3rd best selling console of all time

The PlayStation 4 was until now the third best-selling console in the history of video games. It is dethroned at the beginning of the year by the latest Nintendo console, the Switch.

The PlayStation 4 // Source: Nikita Kachanovsky via Unsplash

Since the launch of the PlayStation 5, Sony has sold more than 32 million models. Thus, the console is less successful than the PlayStation 4, which has sold almost 120 million copies in total. If that was enough to elevate it to third place on the podium of the best-selling game consoles of all time, it is no longer the case. It was surpassed this year by the Nintendo Switch, which sold 122.55 million copies through 2023.

Nintendo Switch rises in the ranking

In any case, this is revealed by Nintendo’s financial results report for 2022, broadcast by Participate. We learn that during the last nine months of 2022, no fewer than 14.91 million Nintendo Switch, Switch Lite, and Switch OLEDs were sold worldwide.

Now, the ranking is still dominated by Sony’s PlayStation 2 launched in 2002, with more than 155 million copies sold. The second position goes to another iconic Nintendo console, the DS. The PlayStation 4, therefore, is fourth, ahead of the Game Boy, still from Nintendo. If Switch wants to surpass the first console in the ranking, it is missing around 33 million copies, while the console is getting old. The classic model launched on March 3, 2017, almost six years ago.

Left half of the Nintendo Switch OLED // Source: Anthony Wonner – Frandroid

As for the French market more specifically, we learned a few weeks ago that Nintendo Switch has become the best-selling console on the market. With more than 7 million copies sold, it dethroned the Wii, which was from the same manufacturer.

halftone results

If these results allow the console to move to third place among the best-selling models of all time, they are less compared to the year 2021. That year, Nintendo did not sing for the first time since it is almost 19 million units. what had happened The result: sales fell by 5.6% in the year that ended last March. In its report, Nintendo attributes the drop in console sales to a semiconductor shortage that led to a lack of consoles, which also explains a drop in the number of games sold.

OLED Dock for Nintendo Switch — The Nintendo Switch dock // Source: Anthony Wonner – Frandroid

As our English-speaking colleagues point out, “ game sales also fell 4% during the same period and although the last Pokémon games (Scarlet and Purple) sold more than 20 million units, they were not enough to make up for the loss. However, the arrival of the highly anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom scheduled for the month of May or the premiere of the animated film adapted from the seriesSuper Mario Broscould boost game sales.