Earlier today, Nintendo released the latest sales figures for the Nintendo Switch 2 and its games. In that data, it was revealed the console has sold 23.68 million units, putting it well above the 21.74 million achieved by the GameCube.
It’s a strong start for a new console, and one which indicates that it’ll likely do decent numbers by the end of its lifespan. It’ll almost certainly outdo the Nintendo 64 and SNES at least, given the former sold 32.93 million units and the latter 49.10 million.
So, while there’s definitely a drop off from 2025 (34.4% according to Nintendo themselves), it’s a solid start, and one which the company itself seems satisfied with:
First-quarter sales for Nintendo Switch 2 did not reach the level seen in the same quarter of last fiscal year, which was when the console launched. However, for a hardware system in its second year, sales compare favourably to the adoption trajectory of Nintendo Switch. In the Japanese market, where a price revision took effect on May 25, hardware sell-through has also remained solid.
As for the games themselves? Eh, that’s a bit more of a mixed bag. You see, Nintendo also released sales figures for recent releases on Switch 1 and 2, and those have been fairly inconsistent overall. For example, the best-selling Switch 2 games so far are as follows:
- Mario Kart World: 15.39 million
- Donkey Kong Bananza: 4.78 million
- Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Switch 2 Edition: 3.99 million *
- Pokémon Pokopia: 3.68 million *
- Kirby Air Riders: 1.90 million
- Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition: 1.15 million *
And this list hasn’t changed much from December 2025:
- Mario Kart World: 14.03 million
- Donkey Kong Bananza: 4.25 million
- Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Switch 2 Edition: 3.89 million *
- Kirby Air Riders: 1.76 million
So, at least on the surface, Switch 2 software sales seem to be fairly sluggish. Mario Kart World sold about a million in the last quarter, Donkey Kong Bananza, Pokémon Legends: Z-A and Kirby Air Riders sold about 100-500K units, and the only recent release for the console to crack the top sales list was Pokemon Pokopia in March 2026.
However, there are a few complicating factors here.
First, Nintendo doesn’t publish all these games in Japan. Pokopia and Legends Z-A are published by the Pokémon Company over there, so their sales figures for those games skip the Japanese ones entirely.
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Hence the true sales figures for Pokopia are likely above 5 million, as mentioned by Serebii.net on Bluesky:
Serebii Update: As of June 30th 2026, Pokémon Pokopia has sold a further 1.27 million units outside of Japan
Current figures would put this at well over 5 million but we do not have an exact figure as Japanese sales are not revealed
www.serebii.net
— Serebii.net (@serebii.bsky.social) 6 August 2026 at 07:56
It’s also probable the same applies to Legends Z-A, albeit to a lesser extent.
And this also likely affects sales for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment too. Koei Tecmo (who developed the game and published it in Japan) confirmed it passed 1 million copies sold in a recent financial briefing.
Hence another million seller you’d think would be on Nintendo’s list isn’t, simply because its sales in the US and Europe weren’t enough to push it over the million mark alone.
Then we’ve got the Switch 2 edition fiasco. You see, Nintendo doesn’t count Switch 2 editions the same way any sane, normal person would. They don’t count the upgrade packs as part of the overall sales figures there.
No, they only count the number of copies of the full game + upgrade sold at retail. As in, the Switch 2 branded versions of games like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom:
Yeah. No-one’s buying these. There isn’t a single reason to buy games like Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Bros Wonder on Switch 2 as a standalone thing, at least if you value anything more than a shiny red box.
So, while Super Mario Party Jamboree sold 1.15 million copies as a standalone game, we have no idea how many more copies were sold via people buying upgrade packs for the Switch 1 version. Same goes with Legends Z-A, which sold at least 8 million copies on Switch 1. Presumably, a sizeable percentage of those buyers upgraded to the Switch 2 version later on.
But enough about existing games and sales trends. What about the new titles? How did Star Fox or Yoshi & the Mysterious Book do here?
Well at face value, not particularly well. Neither game hit 1 million copies sold by the end of June 2026, and neither makes it anywhere near the best-sellers list.
However, there are a few caveats here.
First, both of these games launched really close to the cutoff date for these financial results. Indeed, with Star Fox only launching in June and Yoshi only launching in May, it was always fairly unlikely that either would sell enough in that timespan to make the million sellers list by the next update.
So, all the results really tell us are that they’re not Pokopia level smash hits that immediately took the internet by storm.
Which makes perfect sense in Yoshi’s case. The best-selling Yoshi game ever made was the original Yoshi’s Island on SNES, which sold 4.12 million copies. It’s a series on par with Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi or the Mario sports games in terms of sales, which are solid enough performers, but not even close to on par with the Mario platformers or Mario Kart games.
Add this to the Mysterious Book being a somewhat niche game with limited marketing and a very specific audience in mind, and a million copies in two months was always going to be a long-shot at best. It’ll probably hit about 2-3 million copies by the time the Switch 2 ceases production, and that’s it.
Meanwhile, it just seems a bit too early to tell for Star Fox. It’s not a series that’s regularly broken sales records (well, at least not since the days of the N64, anyway), but Nintendo did put a lot more time and money into this one than is usual for the series, and marketed it a bit more heavily than usual. So, they’re probably at least hoping it’ll hit 1-2 million copies by the time the next quarter rolls around.
That said, other games did do extremely well, especially on Switch 1. For example, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has sold over 8 million copies so far, and become a surprise hit for the system. So, that title is hitting numbers at least.
And Rhythm Heaven Groove is selling well too. Indeed, with over 500K copies sold in its first few weeks in Japan, it’s the fastest title in the series so far. Given it was a July 2026 release and missed the cutoff here, and that sales are only known for Japan so far, and it seems incredibly likely that this is another million seller that’ll show up on the next report.
Either way, those are the figures as of June 2026. Pokopia and Tomodachi Life are selling really well, the Switch 2 hardware has outsold the GameCube’s lifetime numbers, and existing big hits like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza are selling at a steady enough pace. Star Fox and Yoshi not appearing in the million sellers list is definitely a bit underwhelming for Nintendo, but both being recent releases in niche franchises does make it harder to see their performance as all that bad in the grand scheme of things.
So, what are your thoughts here? Do you think the Switch 2 is doing well? What are your thoughts on its sales overall?
Tell us what you think in the comments below, or on our Discord server today!
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