Link and company are getting it done sales-wise.
Nintendo is on a roll as of late with its Switch console. At last count, it’s already sold more than 41 million units worldwide. Several of its games have followed suit, with Mario Kart 8 just over 19 million copies sold, per this chart. But a new report suggests that the Legend of Zelda franchise is about to cross a significant sales threshold in its own right.
The report comes from Reddit, in which the poster, u/Lattie1, notes that the popular series will clear 100 million total sales once this winter season is concluded.
“At the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2019, the franchise was sitting at 97.72 million sales, including all mainline and spin-off Nintendo games. With heavy-hitters such as Breath of the Wild and Link’s Awakening and the holiday season combined, the franchise will surely greatly exceed those 100 million units,” it says.
A big part of that is the Breath of the Wild. Rejuvenation of the series that launched alongside the Switch in March 2017 continues to be one of its biggest sellers. Thus far, 16.04 million units have been sold.
And Link’s Awakening isn’t doing too shabby either. In its first week and a half of release, it cleared 3.13 million units sold worldwide. Once the holiday season ends, it could be well over six million — and keep rising, based on strong reviews and good word-of-mouth.
It helps that a lot of the Zelda video games lived up to its legendary status. The original that started it all on the NES is still heralded as a classic, and A Link To the Past is considered one of the best Super Nintendo games ever made. There are also other standouts, including Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask for Nintendo 64; A Link Between Worlds for the Nintendo 3DS; and The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, both re-released for other platforms like the Wii U and the Wii.
The report should be good news heading into what will likely be the biggest game for the series yet, Breath of the Wild 2. The sequel, confirmed earlier this year, is heavily in development, though it doesn’t have a release date. We could, however, see one announced sometime next year.
Published: Dec 20, 2019 04:46 pm