Nintendo Switch hits another sales milestone

Nintendo's North American Switch unit sales have already surpassed the lifetime worldwide unit sales of the Wii U.

The company announced Thursday that they had sold 15 million units of the popular handheld console in North America, further noting that the Switch had been the most popular console in the U.S. for 10 months in a row, according to the NPD Group.

This number brings NA-specific sales well past the 13.56 million units sold of the company's previous-generation console, the Wii U.

While the Switch lags far behind the PS4 and Xbox One in lifetime sales, it's important to realize how old those other systems are - hardware refreshes aside. The Xbox One and PS4 were released in 2013 and the Switch was introduced in 2017.

The Switch is likely still early in its life cycle - the company just released the $199 Switch Lite, which cuts down on some functionality and focuses wholly on portable gameplay.

A common refrain has been that there are too few titles available on the Switch, while I still think that's definitely true, Nintendo announced that 14 titles had sold more than 1 million copies, with four of its own games (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) selling more than 6 million copies.

As of June 30, 2019, Nintendo has sold nearly 38 million Switch consoles worldwide.