By most retailer accounts, preorders for the Tears of the Kingdom OLED console went fast in 2023 — clearing out at several major retailers within the first day or so of availability. Nintendo doesn't publish a figure for the special-edition SKU specifically, but the surrounding sales data backs up the impression that this launch was unusually big, so here's what we can actually point to, and what's still our own read on why.
The numbers behind the launch
Tears of the Kingdom the game sold roughly 10 million copies in its first three days on shelves — about 4 million of those in the Americas alone — according to Axios' May 2023 reporting on Nintendo's launch figures. That's about the game rather than the console, but the two are hard to fully separate given how tightly Nintendo timed the OLED bundle to the launch window.
On the hardware side, Nintendo's own quarterly financial report shows the OLED model specifically sold 2.83 million units in the April–June 2023 quarter — the quarter the game and its matching special edition both launched in — compared to just 0.64 million for the standard model in that same window. That's not a figure broken out for the Zelda-branded SKU alone, but Nintendo and multiple outlets credited the gap largely to the Tears of the Kingdom bundle driving OLED demand specifically. Regionally, the effect was even sharper: in Japan, the Tears of the Kingdom OLED reportedly accounted for 52.8% of all Switch hardware sold in May 2023; in the UK, the bundle alone made up roughly 35% of that month's total Switch sales.
The game's own numbers kept climbing well past launch — 18.51 million copies by June 30, 2023, per Nintendo's quarterly reporting, then 19.5 million by the end of September, and past 20 million within its first fiscal year. As of Statista's most recent figures (June 2025), lifetime sales sit at roughly 21.93 million — genuinely enormous, though still behind Breath of the Wild's approximately 30.65 million, which remains the best-selling Zelda game ever released.
It was a genuine first, not a reskin
Every prior Zelda special edition on our hardware timeline was a handheld or an accessory. This was the first time the series got the full home-console treatment, on the newer OLED model no less. Novelty alone drives some of that demand.
The timing lined up with peak franchise interest
Tears of the Kingdom was one of the most anticipated sequels in the series' history, following directly on Breath of the Wild's re-introduction of Zelda to a much larger audience. A special edition tied to that specific launch window had a bigger built-in audience than a special edition released at a random point in the console's life cycle would.
The design gave people something to actually show off
The glow-in-the-dark Triforce on the dock became the detail most screenshotted and shared — it's the kind of feature that works as a talking point independent of the game itself. A special edition that photographs well tends to generate its own word-of-mouth demand on top of whatever the game's marketing is doing.
Scarcity fed on itself
This part is more speculative: once early reports of sellouts started circulating, that reputation likely accelerated remaining demand — a self-reinforcing effect that's common with limited-run hardware generally, not unique to Nintendo. We can't cleanly separate "people wanted it" from "people wanted it more because it looked like it was running out," and neither can most retail sell-through data.
What this might mean for the Ocarina hardware
Speculation, not a prediction: the hardware covered in our main roundup is still leak-only as of the August 11, 2026 box art — but if it's real and follows a similar playbook to the TOTK OLED, tied to a major release window and distinctive enough to photograph well, it's reasonable to expect a similarly fast sellout. That's pattern-matching off one data point, though, so we'd hold it loosely.
If you'd rather not wait on a rumor at all, our buyer's guide covers what to check before buying the existing TOTK OLED new or secondhand, and our products directory has current retailer links.