All the hard work paid off
When Sakurai explained his pitch forSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate, his entire development team was stunned. No one but him thought they could pull it off, but lo and behold, the madman did it.
It paid off, too, literally, as Nintendo has recently revealed that in under a year, the gamehas shifted 15.71 million unitson the Switch alone. Remember, this isn’t a confusing “Wii U + 3DS” combined sales situation like the lastSmash: this is nearly 16 million copies onjustthe Switch, which has a total userbaseof roughly 41 million units. That’s an insane reach.
But what I didn’t realize at the time (and as Digital Trends has pointed out) is that 15.71 million units is enough to catapultSmash Ultimateinto the monetary milky way and into the number one spot of “best selling fighting game of all time.” In a coveted top five list that now includes threeSmashtitles (Brawland the aforementioned confusingSmash 4for two systems),Smash Ultimatehas beatenSuper Street Fighter II‘s choke hold number of 15.5 million units, a record that’s been pumped up since the early ’90s through multiple iterations of the game.
This figure also makesSmashthe most popular fighting game series of all time with nearly 54 million copies sold, beating out big contenders likeStreet Fighter(roughly 43 million) andMortal Kombat(roughly 49 million). “Not a fighting game” indeed.
