Breath of the Wild: The New Best-Selling Zelda

Nintendo released their Fiscal Year Earnings from April 2017 to March 2018 and with that they updated the current sales numbers of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, where it now became the new best-selling Zelda game.

According to this document, the game sold 8.48 Million copies on Nintendo Switch. The Nine Months Financial Results Briefing from three months ago put the Wii U sales of the game at 1.5 Million copies. So, unless Breath of the Wild completely stopped selling on Wii U, the game most likely broke the 10 Million mark, which no other Zelda games has done before.

As a reference, the combined sales of Twilight Princess on GameCube and Wii were at 8.85 Million copies (source), while Ocarina of Time sold 7.6 Million copies on the Nintendo 64 and the original The Legend of Zelda sold 6.51 Million copies. Of course this doesn't factor in any remasters, remakes or re-releases, where Ocarina of Time 3D shipped 5.62 Million copies (source on page 11). So, Ocarina of Time has the advantage of time here, but even if you would combine the sales of all its versions, Breath of the Wild still might top that at some point. It's just been a year for the game.

And these sales numbers are well deserved. Breath of the Wild finally made the Zelda series popular again, the same popularity it had with Ocarina of Time back in the 90s. While Twilight Princess had very good sales, it wasn't as impactful overall and probably profited from being a launch title of the popular Wii. With Breath of the Wild it's the other way around, it's an absolute system seller and one of the driving forces behind the Switch. People buy the Switch to play Breath of the Wild.

For the first time in the series, the game also sold DLC, as well as dedicated, separate amiibo, making it even more profitable. You can find Breath of the Wild merchandise left and right. The game is a huge success, the biggest success of the series so far.

And that's because Breath of the Wild finally remembered what's important and fun about Zelda: mainly, the exploration. Having Hyrule as this massive playground, where the player can freely do what he wants, was the right move. And the sales numbers back this up, which is a good thing, because the series will keep moving in this direction, instead of going down the linear route again. Aonuma already confirmed as much in an interview with IGN.

Zelda has great times ahead!