Nintendo Switch is the fastest-selling games console in France French MD reveals Amiibo and software sales figures in new interview

Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B Thursday 11th January 2018 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Nintendo

Nintendo Switch is the fastest-selling games console in France, with 911,000 consoles sold during 2017.

It smashes previous records held by Wii (703,000) and PS4 (650,000).

It means Switch has already outsold the lifetime sales performance of Wii U in less than a year (for France).

The data comes from French publication Les Numériques, quoting Nintendo France MD Philippe Lavoué.

Super Mario Odyssey was the best-selling Switch game with 512,000 units sold, just ahead of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which shifted 508,000. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild delivered 410,000 units, with Splatoon 2 on 252,000 and 1-2-Switch at a little over 200,000.

First-party games accounted for 74% of sales on Switch during 2017, with the best-selling third-party title belonging to Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle with around 150,000 units sold. FIFA 18 sales sit at 73,000, with Rayman Legends and Just Dance at around 50,000.

In France, Nintendo also sold 630,000 Amiibo during the year, a rise of 10% over 2016.

Nintendo 3DS also performed strongly, with 507,000 3DS machines sold during 2017, and almost three million games sold.

In terms of the Mini SNES, Nintendo sold 221,000 units in France, up from the 110,000 it managed for the Mini NES. Lavoué admitted that the inability to meet demand means the firm had lost potential sales this year. However, he defended the decision to be cautious, citing the fact Nintendo only sold 800,000 Wii U machines in France during its lifetime.

Going forward, the MD expects to hit 1m Switch sales by the end of February, and hopes to exceed 2m units by the end of 2018.

The publication also asked Lavoué about investment in 4K, and he stated that Nintendo needs to look at what it can do differently from its competitors, because if Nintendo does the same thing as Microsoft and Sony, then it is "doomed to die"