The industry might be a little chaotic at the moment, but Nintendo is continuing to quietly and calmly do its thing, seeing positive increases across the board as the Switch becomes the best-selling console in Japan, and closes in on becoming the best-selling console in history, all while posting increase revenue and profit.

The news comes courtesy of Nintendo’s new financial results which contain plenty of juicy details about both the console and its games. For example, the Switch, in all of its incarnations, has sold 33.34 million in Japan which makes it the best-selling console ever in that region. The record was previously held by the Nintendo DS which clocked in at 32.98 million sales.

The Switch also continues to sell like cocaine-laced cupcakes, sitting at an impressive 139.36 million units sold. Despite that, the Switch actually needs to sell around another 15 million units to become Nintendo’s best-selling hardware. Yes, you guessed it, the DS currently holds that title with 154 million sold.

Can the Switch do it, though? Well, that’s hard to say. According to Nintendo, they expect the Switch to hit 141.12 million sales by March of this year. Nintendo themselves confirmed a -7.8% drop in sales over the same period from the last financial year as the console enters its seventh year on the market, but even then their forecast for the full year sales has risen from 15 million units to 15.5 million. If the rumours of a Switch 2 launching this year are true then obviously the Switch’s sales will drop significantly, but it’s still in with a pretty good chance of becoming Nintendo’s best-selling device as it will doubtless continue to shift units even with the new machine available.

If the Switch can indeed surpass the DS, then it will only be around a million or so sales away from defeating the PlayStation 2 to become the best-selling console of all time. I’m sure that’s an accomplishment Nintendo would love to have under their belt.

But while the console sales are declining, Nintendo’s financials show that active players are only increasing, as are software sales. According to the company, there are 122 million active annual players, a decent increase over last year’s 114 million and 110 million from the year before that.

Nintendo also published a list of the top ten highest-selling Switch titles, giving us a better idea of what The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom managed to do in 2023.

1: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 60.58m (+3.57m)
2: Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 44.79m (+1.41m)
3: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 33.67m (+1.23m)
4: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 31.61m (+0.46m)
5: Super Mario Odyssey – 27.65m (+0.7m)
6: Pokemon Sword/Shield – 26.17m (+0.15m)
7: Pokémon Scarlet & Violet – 24.36m (+1.13)
8: Super Mario Party – 20.34m (+0.68m)
9: Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 20.28m (+0.78m)
10: New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 17.20 (+0.5m)

Based on these numbers we can confirm that Hogwarts Legacy was in fact the best-selling game of 2023. Technically it already held that title but there was some doubt because Nintendo doesn’t openly publish digital sales numbers, so it was possibly The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had actually sold more than Hogwarts Legacy.

The other two big Nintendo releases of 2023 didn’t make such a huge impact but still did very well. Super Mario Wonder managed to impress with nearly 12 million copies sold, while Super Mario RPG did 3.14 million.I imagine Super Mario Wonder may also end up like Super Mario Odyssey in that it will continue to sell years after its launch.

Nintendo also made sure to point out that The Super Mario Bros. Movie had a major impact on Mario games, boosting sales. We saw that ourselves with several Mario titles suddenly jumping back into the charts.

Digital sales grew as well by 11.7%, with Nintendo pointing out that DLC and Nintendo Online accounted for a big chunk of that. In fact, last quarter digital sales accounted for 128.8 billion yen, with DLC and Nintendo Online making up 62.9 billion yen.

All in all, Nintendo brought in $9.4 billion in revenue, a bump of 7.7% over last year, and a net profit of $2.7 billion, up 17.9%. Because of this, the company has increased its sales forecast, clearly impressing investors because Nintendo’s stock jumped up as well.