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Switch has now outsold PS4 in the US to become the fourth-biggest home video game console of all time in the region, according to the NPD Group, a long-standing US market research company.
“Lifetime unit sales of Nintendo Switch have now surpassed those of PlayStation 4,” NPD Executive Director and Video Game Industry Advisor Mat Piscatella says on Twitter (opens in new tab), “making it the 4th highest unit selling console in U.S. history, and the 6th highest unit selling video game hardware platform overall. In console it trails only PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii.” (Switch sales also currently trail Game Boy/Game Boy Color and Nintendo DS, if you include handhelds.)
For context, Nintendo said in its last financial report (opens in new tab) that Switch had sold just over 42 million units in North and South America, while Sony has not provided public data on American sales for the PS4 – in both cases, NPD is our only source for how the consoles rank in the US, specifically. Sony reported (opens in new tab) that PS4 had sold over 117 million units worldwide as of March 31, 2022, which is still a bit ahead of Switch’s 107.65 million global units (opens in new tab), but the PS4 was on the market nearly four years earlier than the Switch.
The NPD reports that the Switch was the best-selling console of April (and of 2022 so far) in the US by units sold, with the Xbox Series consoles in second place. The pricier PS5 has beaten both consoles in April in terms of dollar sales, but Xbox Series consoles have earned the most money in 2022 so far.
On the software side, it should come as little surprise to see Elden Ring is the best-selling game of 2022 so far. What is surprising, however, is that Elden Ring is now the best-selling game of the past 12 months, beating out the latest Call of Duty launch. Vanguard hasn’t been the hottest Call of Duty in recent memory, but it’s still a surprise to see FromSoftware outdoing Activision Blizzard’s hottest console property on the sales front.
Elden Ring did lose its top sales spot for the month of April to Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The Lego game was also the best-selling game on Switch in April, the first time a third-party game has topped that chart since Monster Hunter Rise over a year ago. “LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga achieved the highest launch month dollar sales for any LEGO title in history,” Piscatella says (opens in new tab), “and after one month ranks among the top 6 best-selling LEGO games life-to-date.”
Got a Switch and looking to build your library? Check out our guide to upcoming Switch games you need to keep an eye on.
