Niko Partners: Nintendo Switch in China sells 50,000 consoles on launch day

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Nintendo sold about 50,000 Switches in China on the console’s launch day in the country on December 10, according to market researcher Niko Partners.

The Switch has been out in most traditional gaming territories since 2017, and it has been a big hit. Nintendo has sold over 41 million Switch consoles around the world.

Fifty-thousand may not seem like a lot for a country with a population over 1.4 billion, but China’s gaming culture is built around PC and mobile gaming. Consoles have never been as big a deal there as they are in places like the U.S. or Japan, and the country is plagued by unofficial knock-offs.

The Switch launched in China costing about $300, and it came bundled with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe already installed on the console.

Niko Partners expects Nintendo to sell 100,000 Switches by the end of year. It expects Switch to overtake PlayStation 4 as the country’s market leader by 2022.