I have a hard time wrapping my head around a Zelda game selling 40 million copies lmao. How much does it sell every year still ? It will def sell 30+ millions which is still mind blowing

Here's a path to ~40M broken down by Fiscal Years/Quarters.  Remember it can keep selling on new NSW devices.  Everything in black is actuals, everything in green is forecast/projection.  FY20 Q4 is the figure we're about to get this coming Thursday, May 6th.

Avg yearly sales so far are pretty consistent right around 5M, so 22 and 23 might not actually drop off as hard as I am putting down here (especially if NSW is still moving >18M units out in 2023).

The sequel will give BotW a boost, which should help get it to 40mil.

@Kakadu18 I agree with that. People are going to want to play the first game before the sequel. Maybe the sequel getting announced is what has caused BOTW to be up YOY for the past 2 years. It's even outpacing Mario, which has never happened before.

I think that near the end of the Switch's life, BOTW could get a version that includes DLC and/or a Nintendo Selects version, which would also help sales.

It depends on what you mean. If it’s people saying “Oh, I want Breath of the Wild 2, but look, there’s another one that came out first - I should play that!” I doubt that’s any higher than 1% of purchasers. Breath of the Wild 2 just simply doesn’t look nearly as exciting as what Breath of the Wild 1 achieved. I doubt there are millions of people sold on the fact that Breath of the Wild 2 was announced with a small trailer that says nothing exciting about the game to people who haven’t experienced the first BotW.


I’d say people are getting it because it’s the Switch’s original killer app. It’s probably the first or second game that comes to most people’s minds when they want to purchase a Switch. It has substantially transcended the Zelda brand - all the YouTube community around it is unlike anything a previous Zelda has had before; it’s a bit like Minecraft in that respect.

There will be more indirect influence: the Zelda brand swirl of hype will probably remind on-the-fencers that Breath of the Wild is on the Switch, and they might have some money for it. Second, the influx in new Switch owners are going to have people looking at Breath of the Wild 1 most times the Switch is purchased - given, it’s the original killer app.

Either way, I think Breath of the Wild’s sales are going to be reasonably predictable based on Switch ownership rates. Unless Breath of the Wild 2 does something to make Breath of the Wild 1 obsolete.

Just my thought.