Zelda Anniversary Console Helps Lift US Switch 2 Hardware Sales
A Nintendo Switch 2 console themed on the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda helped push US Switch 2 hardware sales to their highest weekly dollar total of 2026 so far. Mat Piscatella, who tracks the US games market, shared the figures from the Circana Retail Tracking Service for the week ending October 31, 2026.
The wider market moved too. Piscatella reported that total US video game hardware spending, which covers consoles and the devices sold alongside them, rose 81% compared with the same week a year earlier.
The special edition is the Nintendo Switch 2 – The Legend of Zelda – 40th Anniversary Edition. Nintendo lists its release date as October 29, 2026. The system uses an internal lithium-ion battery rated at 5220 mAh, or milliamp-hours, a standard measure of how much charge a battery can hold.
Buying one in person took planning. At Nintendo New York, a Warp Pipe Pass reservation, a booked slot for a set purchase window, was required to buy the system on October 29. Session 1 ran from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
The Legend of Zelda first launched in 1986, so the anniversary gives Nintendo a reason to celebrate the series in its own right. For players, the practical details are the release date, the reservation system at the New York store, and the console itself, which went on sale in October and arrived in a week when US hardware sales rose sharply.
