When The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom FINALLY arrived on Nintendo Switch, the biggest questions were, “Would it be good?” and “How much will it sell if it did get good review scores? Don’t forget, LOZ hasn’t always been the biggest heavy-hitter in the sales department for Nintendo. However, with Breath of the Wild, it sold tens of millions of units, so its sequel was expected to do just as well. Based on the initial reports from Europe, things are looking toward a record-breaking performance.
First, from the UK, the game is already the biggest physical launch of the year, which is significant given the heavy hitters that have already come out in 2023. Furthermore, it far outpaced what its predecessor did at launch, which isn’t too surprising given that BOTW came out WITH the Switch, so there were only limited numbers that could be bought. But as one insider notes, it’s already making lots of money there:
In the UK, and after just two days, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is already the eighth biggest Zelda game of all time. It's already outsold Skyward Sword, The Wind Waker and A Link Between Worlds. This is based on boxed sales alone. (GfK figures)
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) May 14, 2023
Moving over to France, the game sold 500K in that country ALONE! There are games that don’t get 500K sold worldwide, and The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom did it with a country that you often don’t hear about in terms of sales.
Environ 500 000 ventes physiques pour Zelda TOTK en France pour sa première semaine. C'est un démarrage nettement supérieur à celui du dernier Pokémon. C'est plus que le lancement de Red Dead Redemption II ou des derniers FIFA.
— Oscar Lemaire (@oscarlemaire) May 15, 2023
So when you add that up, things are looking good, especially since we don’t know the sales for the US, Japan, and digital sales. Stay tuned for our review…we’ll get it out…eventually…