UK Sales Data Shows A Strong Start For Switch OLED

Last week brought a major hardware release from Nintendo, with the Switch OLED model bringing us the first notable new version of the system since the Lite in 2019. Though plenty of current Switch owners won’t have upgraded (with various good reasons, especially those that prefer docked play), there did also seem to be pretty solid buzz online with plenty sharing excitement about their shiny new device.

GamesIndustry.biz has been looking at the UK market sales data, and the results suggest the new system has had a good start. No numbers are given (unsurprisingly), but the stats that are available suggest that it proved quite popular, perhaps doing a little better than some of us would have predicted weeks ago.

Last week the OLED model accounted for 70% of all Switch sales in the UK, which is to be expected; notably that surge means it now accounts for 7% of all Switch sales in the UK this year. It also points to a strong week overall for the family of systems, no doubt helped by all the attention around Metroid Dread in particular.

Last week also represented the system’s 14th best week in the UK market; as a comparison its launch back in March 2017 was the 4th best week. The top 13 weeks, unsurprisingly, are all in Christmas or ‘Black Friday’ windows.

Notably, the OLED numbers far out-perform the equivalent Switch Lite launch in 2019.

It comfortably outperformed the launch week of the Nintendo Switch Lite in 2019, which ranks as the 57th biggest week for Switch.

The Switch Lite was a slow-burner for Nintendo. The Lite version currently represents around 20% of total Switch sales since it launched in the UK.

Once again, we’re reliant on UK data at this stage, though we should see some figures out of Japan soon as well.

What’s your impression of the OLED launch last week – do you think it’s off to a strong start? Let us know in the comments!