Nintendo closes-in on 20 million Switch sales as it takes down popular Nintendo ROM websites

Nintendo to break 20 million Switch sales barrier in the current quarter

Nintendo has sold 19.67 million Switch consoles worldwide, well in excess of expectations, since it launched in March 2017.

The company revealed the sales figures in its results for the first quarter of fiscal 2019, the three months to the end of June 2018. Nintendo is now on course to break the 20 million sales barrier in the current quarter. It comes after it smashed the 10 million sales mark within just seven months of its release.

However, sales growth is dropping, with the company selling 1.88 million consoles this quarter compared to 1.97 million in the same quarter in 2017. It has also been criticised for a lacklustre release schedule this year after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild last year.

The arrival of Fortnite: Battle Royale as a free to play game ought to please Switch gamers, though, as has Mario Tennis Aces, which has clocked up 1. 38million sales in just the first few weeks of its release. Super Mario Odyssey, with 11.17 million sales, is currently the top-selling Nintendo title on the Switch.

Nevertheless, behind the cuddly image of Italian plumber Mario lies a hard-nosed business operation, which was also demonstrated this month with the company launching a $100 million lawsuit against websites hawking old NES and SNES game ROMs.

Two websites have been targeted by the company, LoveROMs.com and LoveRetro.co. Both offered downloads of obsolete Nintendo ROM games that people could download to run on Nintendo emulators. Nintendo is demanding damages of $150,000 per pirated game from the websites, which were run by enthusiasts, who took donations to keep the sites going.

Both sites have shut down in response, no doubt making Nintendo management happy, but leaving a sour taste behind - especially as the websites didn't impinge on sales of the retro NES and SNES Classic consoles, which both offered a limited selection of classic Nintendo games.

That, though, is unlikely to be the end of it: Nintendo's lawsuit also demands that the operators hand over their website domains to the company and reveal the sources for the ROM files.

Nintendo also has the unpleasant habit of targeting YouTube video reviewers with copyright take-downs, arguing that any video featuring Nintendo game-play content is a violation of their copyright.