The Nintendo Switch exclusive Super Smash Bros Ultimate has now sold an incredible 13.81 million copies since launching in December 2018, with some reporting that this makes it the best selling fighting game of all time.
Resetera user Muzy notes that the newly reported Smash Ultimate sales puts it ahead of the previous record holder (Super Smash Bros Brawl for Wii) which managed 13.30 million copies in its lifetime, and Mortal Kombat 10, which boasts around 10 million.
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate that Smash Bros Ultimate hit that sales figure in four months. My take away from that is that people really want to punch Kirby in the face.
The news comes from Nintendo’s most recent financial release, and the whole thing paints an incredibly pretty picture for Nintendo. The company needed to bounce back hard after the Wii U failed, and bounce back it has.
The Switch has continued to dominate alongside a strong and steady stream of exclusives, with the home console/handheld hybrid now officially managing to outsell the lifetime sales of the N64.
In addition to Smash Bros Ultimate, Nintendo updated us on how some of its other big exclusives are doing. Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee sits at 10.63 million, Super Mario Party at 6.4, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at 7.47.
Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad actually took to Twitter to point out that this has been Nintendo’s best year since 2009, with generated revenues of 1,200,560 million yen, up 13.7% year on year. Meanwhile, operating income was 249,701 million yen, up 40.6% year on year.
Nintendo also confirmed that thanks to a mix of titles released in previous fiscal years (both first and third party) the total number of million-seller titles during this financial year has hit 23.
With new Pokemon and Animal Crossing games and a remake of Game Boy classic Zelda: Link’s Awakening still to come this year, I suspect Nintendo is just getting warmed up.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.