Nintendo and Zelda Are Dominating Search Traffic

With anticipation that's been building steadily over weeks and months since Nintendo dedicated its entire E3 2016 presence to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it makes sense that topics and keywords related to the game would see search engine spikes across Google, Bing, and anything else people may use (are there others?). And yet, trends emerging today show not just spikes but total dominance compared to other gaming searches. I for one would love to find out how many times people have searched "Breath of the Wild Metacritic."

Nintendo and Zelda search data comes via search intelligence outfit Captify, analyzing 30 billion searches from sites across the web. The breakdown is seen below:

Share of voice for gaming systems over the past two weeks

Nintendo – 52.9%

XBox – 18.7%

Playstation – 15.6%

Sony – 12.22%

Terms searched along with Nintendo Switch

Legend of Zelda – 48.48%

Wii u – 39.2%

Mario – 10.6%

Top Searched Switch Games

Legend of Zelda – 81.4%

Snipper Clips – 14.9%

Fast RMX – 1.2%

Voez – 1.1%

Most notable is the lion's share of searches when compared directly against Sony, Microsoft, and their respective platforms. Meanwhile, "Legend of Zelda" is the most common phrase searched for in tandem with "Nintendo Switch," followed directly by "Wii U," which is a bit baffling. Here's hoping it's not a sign that non-gamer folk think the systems are, due to their shared tablet nature, somehow one and the same.

Unsurprising is Breath of the Wild's dominance against other Switch titles, though it is a bit depressing for Voez and Fast RMX. That said, Zelda fever will reach fever pitch soon once everyone has a copy of their own, at which point smaller Switch titles will surely have their time in the sun. In the meantime, be sure to check out our Nintendo Switch launch coverage below, as well as our Breath of the Wild review here.