2024-01-22 08:41:55
The characters of Link and Mario reign over French video games. Nintendo, with its Switch console, sits in first place in the video game sales ranking in France in 2023 thanks to “Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” and the new Super Mario Bros, the video game giant said on Sunday. In total, more than one in two games (55%) sold in France last year in physical version were Switch games, according to data from the GfK institute, announced Philippe Lavoué, general manager of Nintendo France.
Number 1 in sales with nearly a million copies, Zelda notably surpasses the annual edition of Electronic Arts’ football simulation “EA Sports FC” on PlayStation 5, according to him. Data concerning other manufacturers, such as Sony’s console and Microsoft’s Xbox Series, will soon be disclosed by the annual study of the Leisure Software Publishers Union. The Switch also placed five titles in the Top 10, thanks to the new game “Super Mario Bros Wonder” (second with nearly 750,000 copies) and other older ones like “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe”.
Cinematic success
In addition, in French cinemas, “Super Mario Bros, the film” was the biggest success of the year, with more than seven million admissions, according to the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images . “Which means that we have a lot of Nintendo fans in our pool today who are interested in Super Mario and who come to the game because they are interested in the franchise through the cinematic experience,” analyzes Philippe Lavoué.
Building on this successful experience, Nintendo announced at the end of November the preparation of a live-action film based on the Zelda universe. In 2023, the Switch has sold more than 850,000 copies in France. The milestone of eight million sales in France since its release in March 2017 will be reached “at the end of the month” of January 2024, indicates the CEO of Nintendo France. “This is the strongest installed base (of consoles) observed on the French market.” Thus, “11.7% of the 68 million French people are equipped with a Switch”, according to the manager.
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