After five days on the market, the Nintendo Switch 2 has allegedly become the 4th best console launch on British shores, easily defeating its own predecessor.
That’s according to NielsenIQ data reported by The Game Business. Christopher Dring penned an article revealing that the new Nintendo console, which has been out for five days at the time of writing, managed to outsell the original Switch by 2-to-1. Dring does note that the original Switch was very supply constrained when it hit shelves, though.
Sadly, NielsenIQ didn’t share exact numbers, but we can do some guesswork. First, we know that the original Switch sold around 80,00 units according to Nintendo themselves, so we could probably safely assume an approximate figure of around 160,000 units for the Switch 2.
Things get a bit more complicated when you start delving into the figures for other consoles. For example, NielsenIQ’s list places the Xbox Series S/X console in 3rd, and we go looking for sales figures it’s supposed to be around 155,000 in the first week, so the Switch 2 presumably sold less than that.
However, according to the same NielsenIQ chart, the PlayStation 3 is in 5th, one place behind the Nintendo Switch 2, but reports say it sold around 165,000 in its launch week.
This likely comes down to the fact that NielsenIQ says it’s week one data runs from Sunday to Saturday, meaning some consoles on its chart were available for 5 days, while others were only available for 2. That does confuse matters a bit.
If you’re surprised by the Switch 2 not beating out Xbox, then keep in mind that Nintendo has historically found the UK to be a tricky market. The original Switch might be the best-selling console of the PS4/Xbox One generation globally, but in the UK it is behind the PS4.
Currently, the Switch is the 3rd best-selling console of all time, having shifted just over 152 million machines since it launched. With the Switch 2 already selling fast, could it be on the path to finally dethroning the PlayStation 2 as the best-selling console ever? I guess we’ll find out in half a decade or so.