This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

As well as some stellar software numbers (revealing that Animal Crossing New Horizons is now the second most popular Switch game), there were some pretty rosy hardware statistics in Nintendo’s latest financial briefing too.

The Switch managed to sell an additional 5.68 million units within the last quarter, despite the impact of coronavirus on production and the subsequent retail shortages. That breaks down to 3.05 million units of the regular Switch and 2.62 million Switch Lites.

What that means is that the ‘Nintendo Switch family of systems’ as Nintendo calls it, has now reached global sales numbers of 61.44 million units. That’s only a slither away from surpassing the NES and Famicom, who stand at a combined sales total of 61.91 million.

There’s a long way to go before it reaches the 101.1 million units of the Wii, but it looks like the Switch is on course to be Nintendo’s second biggest selling home console ever by the end of the year.

Source: Nintendo