Nintendo is back! Switch sells faster than SNES, N64 and Wii

After the dismal sales performance of the Wii U, many speculated that it could be the demise of Nintendo as a hardware manufacturer. But while these are still early days, initial sales reports of the Nintendo Switch point to the opposite.

It is claimed that the first weekend sales of the Switch are better than any other console in the Japanese gaming giant’s history.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is also the biggest selling launch game, even beating Super Mario 64. Bundled games, such as Wii Sports and Nintendo Land, don’t count.

• Nintendo Switch review: Return of the king?
• Nintendo Switch: Price, specs and everything you need to know
• All the Nintendo Switch games: Launch titles and every game for 2017 revealed

The claims come from New York Times journalist Nick Wingfield, who tweeted that he received information during an interview with US Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Aime. They are based on North American sales and, as Wingfield said, are more notable because the “Switch launched in March, rather than [the] holidays”.

2. Fri-Sat sales for Nintendo Switch exceeded first 2-day sales in Americas for any system in Nintendo history. Next biggest was Wii.

— Nick Wingfield (@nickwingfield) March 6, 2017

It didn’t quite break Nintendo’s UK record for first two days sales though, which is still held by the Wii, but the company did sell 80,000 Switch consoles in the country, twice as many as Wii Us in the same time period.

Zelda was also outperformed in the first week of sales by PS4 hit Horizon Zero Dawn. However, Zelda only officially came out on Friday 3 March, Horizon had the previous four days to register additional sales.

We’ve had a few false dawns for Nintendo consoles in the past, after all, the GameCube did well initially, but considering the critical response to the hardware and amazing reviews for Breath of the Wild – ours included – things are definitely heading in the right direction.