Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom – taking a sword to sales records (pic: Nintendo)



Nintendo’s latest epic is already the fastest selling game of the year in the UK and the eighth biggest Zelda game after just three days.



In a few years’ time it will be hard for some people to believe, but Zelda games never used to be particularly big sellers – critically acclaimed but in terms of sales well behind many of Nintendo’s other top franchises.



Breath Of The Wild changed all that, with Nintendo recently revealing it’s sold almost 30 million copies, putting it ahead of the likes of Pokémon Sword/Shield and Super Mario Odyssey. And now its sequel, Tears Of The Kingdom , has sold 2.7 times more than Breath Of The Wild in its first week.



To be fair, Breath Of The Wild was a launch title, so there weren’t nearly as many Switches in the world then as there are now, but the first week sales of Tears of The Kingdom are double that of Hogwarts Legacy , which was previously this year’s best-selling game – at least in terms of physical sales.



Nintendo never reveals its digital sales, which are generally lower, in proportion to physical sales, than other publishers, so we’ll never know for sure exactly how well Tears Of The Kingdom has done in the UK, but very well seems to be the rough estimate.



Despite only having launched on Friday it is already the eighth biggest Zelda game ever, selling more in less than a week than either Skyward Sword or The Wind Waker did in their entire lifetimes.






UK all formats retail chart – 13 May 1 (-) The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom (NS) 2 (1) Hogwarts Legacy (PS4/XO/PS5/XSX) 3 (2) Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (PS5/XSX) 4 (5) FIFA 23 (PS5/NS/PS4/XO) 5 (4) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (NS) 6 (3) Dead Island 2 (PS5/XSX/PS4) 7 (6) Super Mario Odyssey (NS) 8 (19) The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (NS) 9 (11) Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS) 10 (10) Minecraft Legends (NS/PS5/PS4/XO)

Copyright and Compiled by GfK





In terms of revenues generated, it’s already the fourth biggest, behind only Ocarina Of Time, Twilight Princess, and Breath Of The Wild.



However, it’s not the biggest Switch launch ever, as it sold 12% less than last year’s Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Although it made more money, because Pokémon is £10 cheaper and Zelda has an expensive collector’s edition.







It’s an extraordinary achievement for such a complex game, especially as the UK is traditionally Nintendo’s weakest major market and it’s likely to do even better, proportionally, in the US and Japan.



We should get official worldwide figures during Nintendo’s next financial results, in about three months’ time, but it’s clear that Zelda is only going to become more and more important for Nintendo in the future.









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