Nintendo says its Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sold more than 5.2 million copies worldwide in the four days after its November 5 launch, including 810,000 in Japan alone.
The Kyoto company announced the figure on November 11 and called it the highest four-day global total for any Nintendo-published Switch 2 game. Its US arm went a step further, saying no Nintendo-published Switch 2 game has sold faster, both worldwide and across North and Latin America. Both counts cover physical and digital copies, according to Nintendo’s own sales data.
A 1998 classic, rebuilt
This is not a straight port. Nintendo calls it a full remake of the 1998 Nintendo 64 adventure in which Link hops between childhood and adulthood to stop Ganondorf. The new version adds orchestral music, voice acting, longer cutscenes and reworked camera and movement controls, while keeping the original’s world, dungeons and two-era structure.
It is also the second time the game has been remade. A Nintendo 3DS version, Ocarina of Time 3D, arrived in 2011, and the original has been re-released on the GameCube, Wii and Wii U and through the Nintendo Classics service. If you are already playing, our guide to the 100 Gold Skulltulas hidden in the Switch 2 remake and the 200-Rupee final prize covers the longest side quest.
How four days compare with 1998
The new number looks even bigger next to the original’s record. The Nintendo 64 cartridge sold about 7.6 million copies worldwide over its whole life. On Nintendo’s figures, the remake has reached roughly 68% of that lifetime total (5.2 divided by 7.6) in just four days.
Spread evenly, 5.2 million copies over four days works out to about 1.3 million a day. In 1998, the original needed close to a week to pass 1 million in the United States, and ended that year at 2.5 million there after only 39 days on sale.
Japan tells a similar story. The N64 game sold 920,000 copies in Japan across all of 1998. The remake’s 810,000 Japanese sales in four days equal about 88% of that first-year figure.
Two caveats apply. Sales in 1998 were cartridges in shops, while today’s count blends boxed copies with downloads, and the Switch 2 already had a far larger audience on day one than the brand-new Nintendo 64 library did. Neither point shrinks the size of the launch, but they explain part of how a 28-year-old story can move this fast.
Part of a 40th birthday push
Nintendo framed the release as one piece of the Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary, marking four decades since the first game launched in Japan in 1986. The company lists a worldwide concert tour of Zelda music starting in 2027 and a live-action Legend of Zelda film. That film is due in theaters on April 30, 2027.
The Japanese release also points players to ZELDA NOTES, a companion feature inside the Nintendo Switch App that needs a free Nintendo Account but not a paid Nintendo Switch Online membership.
The Switch 2 has had other big launches this autumn, and console makers are leaning on familiar names; Sony’s ray-traced shadows for GTA VI on PS5 Pro are the latest example. Smaller studios are posting milestones too, such as House House’s Big Walk passing 2 million sales.
The next official checkpoint for the Zelda remake will be Nintendo’s quarterly results, where the company publishes its own list of million-selling titles.
Further reading
Illustrative image. Image: Evan-Amos, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
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