Nintendo Sells 5.2 Million Copies of 'Zelda' Remake in Four Days

Nintendo sold 5.2 million copies of its remake of "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" in just four days, giving the Switch 2 the blockbuster it had been waiting for. The figure makes the title the fastest-selling breakout in the console's short life — and arrives at a moment Nintendo badly needed one.

The 2026 edition launched on the 5th of this month at $59.99 (about R$332). It is a complete recreation of the 1998 action-adventure classic originally released on the Nintendo 64, rebuilt with new graphics, new environments and redesigned characters. This is not an upscaled port; it is a full remake of a game many critics rank among the greatest ever made.

How good is the game, by the numbers?

Both audiences and professional critics scored the title 96 out of 100 on Metacritic, the review aggregator. That places it among the best-rated video games of recent years. For a remake to match the reception of its source material is rare; for players and critics to agree on the score is rarer still. The reception is not guaranteed to hold as more reviews accumulate, but the early signal is unambiguous.

Why the Switch 2 needed this win

The Switch 2 has had an uneven first year on the market. Rising memory chip costs have pressured hardware prices and squeezed the console's economics. Against that backdrop, the new "Ocarina of Time" has already outsold the lifetime total of "Donkey Kong Bananza," another popular 2025 title. Only "Mario Kart World," which shipped as part of a launch bundle with the Switch 2, has sold more units.

That ranking deserves a caveat: bundle inclusion inflates unit counts, so comparing "Mario Kart World" against a standalone $59.99 release is not a like-for-like measure. Even so, passing "Donkey Kong Bananza" in days rather than months is the strongest software performance the platform has produced outside the bundle.

Is history repeating for Nintendo?

The first Switch, launched in 2017, received an enormous boost from "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" as a launch title, which helped attract players from outside the Nintendo universe. The new "Ocarina of Time," despite being a remake, may produce a similar effect — drawing in gamers with no prior attachment to the franchise or the platform.

The stakes are straightforward. Nintendo is heading into the crucial year-end holiday season, the period that typically decides console generations, with memory costs still pressing on hardware pricing. A 96-rated game selling 5.2 million copies in four days is the kind of software momentum that moves hardware off shelves. If the remake sustains its pace through the holidays, the Switch 2's uneven first year may become a footnote; if it fades, the memory-cost problem returns to center stage.