Nintendo as a company has had many ups and downs, from its early 1900s in the console market to its release in 2017, the Nintendo Switch (which some of you may have heard of). It doesn’t seem long ago that we wrote sad news articles on the Wii U, or reminisced about the 3DS now that Nintendo has stopped making the little boys.
Now we can see the last 31 years of Nintendo console sales in one big picture, thanks to Visual Capitalist (click here for the full resolution photo). It may not include sales of the dazzling Virtual Boy, but it does include a significant number of Nintendo’s plastic delights from the Game Boy to the present day.
2009 was a great year for Ninty, with both DS and Wii seeing record sales, and it looks like the Switch will one day hit their peak. With 154 million sales of the DS in its ten-year lifespan and 101 million sales of the Wii, the Switch has a long way to go, but nearly four years into its existence, it has already sold more than 68 million copies, with an expected 45 million more in 2020 alone (thanks, Animal Crossing!).
What year was your favorite when it comes to Nintendo consoles? We’re partial to a bit of GameCube ourselves. Discuss your favorite vintages in the comments below!