Zelda: Breath of the Wild Is Now the Fastest-Selling Nintendo Launch Title of All Time (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: It's no surprise that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch, a console that just had its strongest U.S. opening ever for the company. But managing to sell more copies than consoles that can actually play it? That's what's happened in the U.S., amazingly -- Nintendo just announced that it sold 906,000 Switch consoles in March along with 925,000 copies of Breath of the Wild. The Wii U version moved almost 460,000 units on top of that, making for total sales of over 1.3 million. Breath of the Wild is now the fastest-selling Nintendo launch title of all time and the fastest-selling Legend of Zelda game ever. Nintendo says it thinks the Switch attach rate of more than 100 percent might be explained by people who bought a limited edition version to collect and a regular version to actually play, though another possibility is that some bought the game before they could find the console itself in stock.

Comments

Um, it's the only one worth buying?

[adosch]

I pre-ordered a Switch and did get a handful of the other titles out there. But let's face it everyone: This was planned hook-line-and-sinker style. On top of a new platform and into the gaming style of Zelda or not --- it's a great game, but the only worthy title out there that has zero competition. I'm not surprised it beat any tracked sales records. What else was everyone going to get excited about?

Wonder if Mario Kart in a few weeks will surpass? Because after that, we're all going to be waiting for that first Mario game around Black Friday/Christmas time.

Re:Um, it's the only one worth buying?

[sexconker]

BotW is certainly head and shoulders and torso and legs and a ladder above everything else out there (Switch or otherwise), but there are a handful of worthwhile games on the Switch.

Snipperclips (download only) is great for 2 players. I believe there's a demo. It's also got some levels for 4 players, but I think there's only 12 or so. I had a group that went through it recently and it was great, but I was disappointed there were so few levels for 4 players. (There's some third mode for up to 4 players, called Party Blitz or something, but I think it's just a time-trial type thing. I haven't tried it.)

Bomberman is Bomberman. It sucked ass when it launched because it had horrendous delay on the controls, but they've since patched that and added more stages and shit (for free). If you have a group who likes to play Bomberman, it's probably worth it if you have the Best Buy or Amazon Prime 20% discount.

Has Been Heroes is an interesting single player title. I think it's only $20. It's pretty challenging, but it can get repetitive.

Puyo Puyo Tetris has a demo out, and it may interest some people. I may pick this one up. I think this has a budget price as well.

There's Blaster Master Zero, which I've heard good things about. Though it's reportedly easy (or at least compared to the original) and short.

2 weeks until Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which is basically a rerelease of Mario Kart 8. It'll be hard to fuck this up, and they've included proper battle stages now.

Arms and Splatoon 2 are coming in a couple of months as well.

And there's plenty of indie / retro stuff on the eShop available now and coming soon, some with free demos.

And the Switch is region free (unless devs explicitly lock a particular title, I guess), so you can create a Japanese Nintendo account and browse the Japanese eShop on your Switch, buy stuff there, and play it under your regular US/whatever account. You may need to buy eShop gift cards from amazon.co.jp or something.

Re: Um, it's the only one worth buying?

[Blaskowicz]

Why buy a Wii U? and be saddled with an ugly redundant home console that's kind of useless without the tablet, while the tablet is entirely useless without the console?

Wii U is like an Altair or IMSAI 8080, a fugly box that needed a tacky computer terminal attached. Computers got more successful when they filled both the computer and terminal part like the Commodore PET, Apple II and Switch do.

Re:People have no taste

[wonkey_monkey]

Or maybe "people" aren't you and are allowed to have their own opinion.

Not surprising

[lytlebill]

When you consider that the launch lineup was so tiny as to be almost negative, it doesn't come as a shock that the only truly notable title sold as many units as the console.

I still don't see the market for the Switch, given its less-than-competitive performance; it just feels like Nintendo is counting on the gimmick to hit the same lucky timing the Wii did. I'm no expecting much longevity, particularly given the brisk pace that smartphones set as far as portable performance.

Many games sold online in US are shipped overseas

[Flytrap]

On Saturday April 15, 2017, BeauHD said:

It's no surprise that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch... But managing to sell more copies than consoles that can actually play it? That's what's happened in the U.S., amazingly -- Nintendo just announced that it sold 906,000 Switch consoles in March along with 925,000 copies of Breath of the Wild.

Many people around the world buy their games from US based online stores when that game is not readily available from their local game store... These sales will have been recorded as US sales, even if the product might have ultimately been shipped overseas.

The iPhone exhibited a similar phenomenon during 2007-2009 when it was not yet readily available around the world. Apple reported significantly higher US unit sales than AT&T was reporting new subscribers - even though the phone was network locked to AT&T in the US - that was because many iPhones were being purchased in the US for use on other (often overseas) networks (after being jailbroken).

Re:Was going to buy one

[Archfeld]

Nah I lucked into a wonderful women who had a great kid by a deadbeat loser Dad. I really enjoy having the kid around and I did not have to go through the terrible 2's with him. He's old enough that he appreciates me, and I can like him as a person. The best part is his mother likes Hockey and drinks beer as well. I met her at a Sharks game, we both have season tickets...