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Nintendo Switch Has Surpassed the Original PlayStation in Lifetime Sales

Nintendo’s official Switch total is higher than Sony’s published PS1 figure, though their reporting dates and sales descriptions differ.
WorldLifetime Sales Length2 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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Yes. Nintendo reported 156.59 million Nintendo Switch hardware units worldwide as of June 30, 2026. Sony’s published total for the original PlayStation is more than 102.4 million units as of March 31, 2012. The figures establish that Switch has passed PS1, but they come from different reporting dates and use different descriptions of sales.

How the reported totals compare

System Reported worldwide hardware total As of Measure described by manufacturer
Nintendo Switch 156.59 million June 30, 2026 Nintendo: worldwide consolidated sales in units, life-to-date
Original PlayStation (PS1) More than 102.4 million March 31, 2012 Sony: cumulative worldwide hardware unit sales (sell-in)
Nintendo DS 154.02 million June 30, 2026 Nintendo: worldwide consolidated sales in units, life-to-date
PlayStation 2 (PS2) More than 160 million March 31, 2012 Sony: cumulative worldwide hardware unit sales (sell-in)

Nintendo’s figures are from its hardware and software sales data; Sony’s PS1 and PS2 figures are from its business data and sales page. Sony’s cited figures are historical, not updated through 2026.

What “fifth best-selling console” means

The manufacturers’ figures support the narrower comparison: Switch’s reported total is higher than Sony’s published PS1 total. They also show Switch above Nintendo DS’s same-date total and below Sony’s published PS2 total. They do not, by themselves, settle a precise all-time ordinal ranking across every console.

That ranking depends on what a list counts. Nintendo Switch is a hybrid system, Nintendo DS and Game Boy are handheld families, while PlayStation and Wii are home consoles. A ranking that includes handheld and hybrid systems is not directly comparable to one limited to traditional home consoles. It also matters whether each manufacturer’s latest total is used and how different sales measures are treated.

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Why the figures are not a perfect head-to-head tally

  • Different cutoffs: Nintendo’s Switch figure is dated June 30, 2026; Sony’s PS1 figure is dated March 31, 2012. The totals are separated by more than fourteen years.
  • Different wording for the measure: Nintendo calls its figures worldwide consolidated sales, life-to-date. Sony explicitly describes its hardware figures as cumulative worldwide sell-in. Neither label should be silently treated as identical to the other or as a documented measure of consumer sell-through.
  • Different product categories: Each figure refers to hardware for a platform or model family, but a broad console ranking may include home, handheld, and hybrid systems.
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Other Nintendo figures provide context

As of June 30, 2026, Nintendo reported 118.69 million Game Boy units, 101.63 million Wii units, and 81.51 million Game Boy Advance units, using the same worldwide consolidated life-to-date sales description as for Switch and DS. These figures show the scale of Nintendo’s major hardware families; they do not resolve cross-manufacturer ranking methodology.

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