Released on October 8, the Nintendo Switch OLED Model arrived with a bang in Japan. In its first three days on sale, the newly updated Switch sold 138,409 units.
These numbers are for the Japanese sales week starting on October 4 and ending on October 10. In comparison, during that same period there were 32,792 Switch units sold and 8,650 Switch Lite units. The total Switch sales for that week were 179,851 units.
As seen in Famitsu’s sales chart, Switch sales shot through the roof when the OLED Switch was released. Since August, Switch sales have been on the decline in Japan. In the third week of August, for example, over 80,000 Switch units were being sold, but by the first week in October that number had dropped to around 40,000 units. (Even with the declining sales for the vanilla Switch, moving that many units each week in Japan is still quite good!)
The earlier drop is not a surprise, because no doubt consumers were waiting for the OLED Switch’s release. The Switch OLED sports a far better screen and stand, for not a huge amount more money, so it was probably a good idea to be in a holding pattern for the updated hardware.
The Switch has been a massively successful console for Nintendo. This past June, the Kyoto-based game company updated its total unit sales for the Nintendo Switch—at that time, Nintendo had sold 89.04 million Switches, surpassing the 61.91 million units sold by Famicom and NES, the 75.94 million sold by the Nintendo 3DS, and the 81.51 million sold by the Game Boy Advance. The Nintendo DS at 154.02 million units, the Game Boy at 118.69 million units, and the Wii at 101.63 million units still form Nintendo’s top three sales champs.
Upcoming fall games Mario Party Superstars, Shin Megami Tensei V, and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl should help grow those Switch numbers in the coming weeks and months.