Best-Selling Nintendo Switch Games

Just two games that Nintendo didn't got any development or publishment in...

You know what would have been cool? If you had put some actual research into finding out updated figures. All but the top 10 of these are YEARS old now and likely far far off. For example, Nintendo’s latest number for “Link’s Awakening” is from December 2021! And that’s the one you’re citing here.

Ring Fit Aventure being in the top 10 seller with no ties to any big nintendo franchise

@NintendoWife Do you read Nintendo's reports? They're very selective what data they share, so that's all NL have to go on. If it says Dec 2021, that was the last time Nintendo reported sales figures, which means it's very unlikely that there has been a significant change in sales.

Seriously, what happened to all the sales tracker services? It used to be such a big thing, back in the days of VGChartz (which was bit of a clown site of course, but there were actual companies tracking games sales too.) Now all we have is Nintendo’s financial reports, and they restrict info to the top10 usually.

@cmdrmarc No, that’s not what it means. This is a Zelda game that’s been on the market for 3 1/2 years, yet all we have is sales figures for the first 2 years. These games have legs, all the more with Switch’s gigantic install base. It was on sale too, at least once… I bet it is in the 9-10m region, not at 6m anymore. Which is kinda relevant when discussing the success of their various attempts at making (in this case) Zelda games.

All it really means is they stopped publishing updates, because (see previous posts) they only share the all-time Top10. Which is hardly changing anymore because yeah, how many new games are going to beat those numbers?

I'm very curious how Sparks of Hope sold. I know it was off to a slow start but it seems to have stuck around the charts for a while. Hopefully Ubisoft give an update on it at some stage.

Tbh I'd expect every Nintendo first party game to sell over 1 million.

@NintendoWife ok so where do you expect them to get the info if they only share Top 10 updates? Is it anywhere else?

@Il_Nintenditore agreed, I’m just glad to see all three Xenoblade games on this list. I wasn’t sure if Definitive Edition actually sold 1 million. The franchise has come a long way from its humble beginnings where it was considered so niche it almost never released in the US at all…

Excellent list of titles with a few good surprises. But with such a great selling system, I wish Nintendo hadn't been as conservative in bringing back classics that could have had a better chance with a bigger audience: Wave Race, 1080, Excite Truck, F-Zero, Rhythm Haven, Star Fox outside a comeo in Star Link, Kid Icarus, Sin & Punishment and even smaller titles such as Pushmo. I was positive we would see at least 2 or 3 with these, but it seems the chances are rather slim now.

@cmdrmarc There used to be retailer trackers, yes. There used to be “NPD” for US and Canada, “Famitsu” and “Media Create” for Japan, … 10 years ago people actually spent their time on VGChartz , anxiously awaiting and guessing weekly updates for individual titles. Then it just stopped. Even VGChartz (who were always accused of either stealing commercial services’ data or simply making it up) don’t update anymore.

Might be that with digital now being such a big part of sales, it became hopeless.

As for this site and list here: I think as a journalist, if you don’t have good info, you should either try and research it or not post it.

Some interesting figures on here. I do wonder what the true numbers are for some of the older entries, but perhaps we may get an update in the future.

I am keeping an eye on the sales of Engage against Three Houses as I am curious how it performs. I've still yet to pick up Engage myself.

I would like Metroid to keep improving especially the Prime remaster, but relative to other games on the list, I feel it hasn't done too badly. I just hope there is enough to convince Nintendo to keep making them.

Still don't like the concept of a Wii U port being the best-seller, with or without the expansion. I do wish the top 10 had a bit more variety but eh.

@Munchlax Dragon Quest XI is not a first-party Nintendo game.

@NintendoWife But the article is games that passed 1m sales - these all have, and they've included when they last had an update, so as you admit if they can't get more info surely they've done all they can and reported it accurately?

@cmdrmarc I knew you were going to say that But integral part of saying the truth is saying the whole truth. If some of your data is brand new and some is wildly outdated (they are using it to make a ranking after all which is likely rubbish), you should note that.

I’m aware I’m sounding like I’m taking this way too seriously btw. But I felt like it was worth pointing out, at least once.

@cmdrmarc Also: This is quite a big gaming website now - look at the amount of comments - , so I don’t think it’s wrong to expect better journalism. It’s not like there are no better ways of researching than simply compiling what’s already out there for everyone. Back when IGN was big they used to have good contacts at Nintendo and even asked them some questions sometimes.

@reporterdavid Ah yes those rabids.

@JimNorman Pokémon Let's Go is at 15.07 million, not 14.92 million and Kirby Star Allies is at 3.98 million. Great work otherwise.

Cruisn´Blast FLOP
Advance Wars 1 + 2 FLOP

Warioware Get it Together deserve way more!!!

Some games in this list are not exclusives...because we can play them on Steam, for example.

@reporterdavid Amazing for Nintendo. Not so great news for all the third party developers out there I'd say.

@Paulo absolutely... I still go back and play Wave Race, Pilotwings, F-Zero and Starfox (all N64 versions). Those games were so innovative and fresh, and there's not much like them on any modern console. I feel like a refresh of any of those titles would do relatively well.

crazy to see Luigis Mansion 3 almost at 13 million hopefully Luigis Mansion 4 is in development right now

I also would like to see the sources for these numbers

@NintendoWife

Who cares, they're all over a million we know that for sure.

How does a Nintendo website not understand that Pokemon and Kirby AREN'T FIRST PARTY titles by Nintendo? They are SECOND PARTY releases made by Game Freak and HAL, respectively. You can even look in your own information for the answer to the solution. You literally have Bayonetta 2 on here which was made by Platinum. What are you even thinking putting out such a misleading and inaccurate article? Yikes. I counted over 30 GAMES that SHOULDN'T be on this list because you guys don't know what a first party game is.

@rpawlos15133 yep, good thing you mentioned Pilotwings, totally deserving of a new title.

@Rainbowfire Feel free to not care! I did. It’s a sloppy list, exists only for the affiliate links anyway, and knowing that no one puts any effort into these is offputting - to me.

@Tober you are right...

Astral Chain outselling Bayonetta is kinda surprising. Not upsetting or anything, just surprising.
Also, glad to see ARMS seems to keep slowly moving up. If they had cut the price to $30 when Min Min joined Smash, I bet it would have broken 3 million.

@Rykdrew Did Nintendo publish Cruiz'n Blast? I thought they allowed Raw Thrills to self publish it or something.
Either way, it did not sell a million.

Splatoon 3 at 10.67 million and its first year isn’t even over yet, that’s really impressive! Only 3 million to go to pass Splatoon 2, we can probably expect that by the end of this fiscal year, after the expansion.

@Deviant-Dork The article quite clearly states in the introduction that what they mean by "first-party" are games published by Nintendo. Some of the games on the list may have been developed by other studios, some of which are partially or wholly owned by Nintendo, but they were all published by Nintendo, hence they are first-party.

@Munchlax Ah, okay, I didn't know that, I thought it was published by Square Enix everywhere.

I know that traditionally a Million Seller is a big deal… but with production values and marketing budgets these days, would Nintendo consider a first-party game selling a million actually a financial success? I don’t know if there’s a way to answer that question without having inside info from the Big N, but I’m still curious…

It would be easier to count the Nintendo retail published games that are not in the million club:
-Snipperclips
-Advance Wars (too early to say for sure I suppose)
-Fire Emblem Warriors
-Tokyo Mirage Sessions
-Hyrule Warriors
-That DC supergirls game.
-Dragon Quest XI
-Dragon Quest Builders 1 and 2.
-Sushi Striker
-Labo Robot, Vehicle and VR.
-Daemon X Machina
-Mario Rabidds Spark of Hope
-Go Vacation
-Bravely Default 2

Of course, some of this games, most notably perhaps DQ sold more than a million when you combine all the versions and all the regions...but Nintendo in the info that they share only counts the sales on the region they are publishing the game, so DQ XI for example on the Switch was unable to reach the big number outside of Japan. Same thing with games like Machina or Go Vacation, the sales numbers of Japan and the rest of the world are not combined in the reports...not that I think those two would reach the million even then, unfortunately.

The same deal explains SMT V position on the list. The game sold worldwide more than a million a long time ago...but Nintendo published the game only in PAL regions and in that market it just barely reached the million copies

@Yomerodes most of those aren't First Party titles.

"we have collected together all of the Nintendo-published games (...) to have reached the big 'one milly' "

So, it's not a list of first party games then? I've never heard anyone call Octopath Traveler a first party game.
Or do people consider that first party? I'm honestly not sure now.

Nintendo Selects when?

Mother 3 Switch Version - 7 copies sold on launch

I remember asserting on a post from NL's FB page about the XC3 collector's edition that the game probably won't hit 5 million lifetime so complaints about handling will largely go unnoticed and the press/internet forum users were making a mountain out of a molehill. Someone responded with the assertion that XC2 had already passed 6 million (that person was misreading the series lifetime sales) and thusly XC3 was all but guaranteed to surpass 5 million. The sales data Nintendo provided discredits that ridiculous assertion, but since the source of that was FB, I don't see anyone conceding that point.

Oh well. Score one for me and another L for the haters.

@Deviant-Dork

I never said they were first party. They are "games published by Nintendo", that is, in one or more regions. I was surprised with a few of them to be honest.

@Yomerodes good for you, the article is about first party titles, or is supposed to be.

Very Happy for Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze(Nr.26, 4 million), wish for DK Country Returns on the switch with 3DS controls. I can’t for the new entry in Donkey Kong franchise

@Deviant-Dork

Oh, so your issue is about remaining on point then. If the article is about million sellers we also shouldn't go around mentioning any game that is not a million seller?

@Rykdrew I wouldn't doubt that Advance Wars doesn't reach a million as it's never been a huge seller(highest sales in the series was around 700k I believe), but are sales figures even out for it yet?

@steely_pete No. Octopath is not first party. First party indicates the IP is owned or partially owned by Nintendo. So games like Bayonetta 3 are first party

@ComfyAko
I am all 7 of them.

I love how everyone's arguing over what a first party game is when most of Nintendo's games could be called second party anyways. No one ever called rare games first party. Also poor Warioware, from a gameplay standpoint it's become my second favorite in the series.

@WaffleBoat Believe me or not but I wanted to type 7 bilions but I edited something and forgot to put the word back on (I was in a hurry)

So yeah, the rest would be me lol

Go Vacation is not a million seller? I'm a little surprised it isn't.

That game is in a weird spot when it comes to being a Nintendo game. It was originally a Wii game released in 2011 around the same time as Kirby's Return to Dream Land made by Bandai Namco. Nintendo had no involvement with the Wii version.
The Switch version, which came out 7 years later, has Nintendo listed on the copyright. I'm guessing they did some work on the port, enough to have partial ownership of it.

@Yomerodes I think you missed some eshop only titles like Stretchers, some Kirby games, Good Job.

So basically half of that just over a billion number from earlier. Guessing Monster Hunter would be the biggest third party title?

ARMS needs more love from gamers.

would be better to make a list of first party Nintendo games that didn't sell over a million

@steely_pete

I can understand being confused. The thing is, the whole "party" system is about developers...and in this page we are talking about distribution.

As far as developing goes, a game can be first party (made by an internal studio of the console maker) second party (made by an external and exclusive studio to the console maker) or third party (made by an external and non exclusive studio to the console maker).

As far as distribution goes, you only have two groups. 1) Games published by the console maker, 2) Games published by any other company. And sometimes, as we see in this article, the two groups are called first and third party respectively for simplicity sake, further increasing confusion. It is in this part were things get a little messy because the very same game can have many different publishers depending on the region or even the console and year of release, while the developers of course remain the same as long as the game itself is the same.

The fact that BotW is the best-selling Zelda game by over 20 million copies is what I point to whenever people complain about the current direction of the series.

In what world is Shin Megami Tensei V a Nintendo first party title?

Does this mark the first time a Zelda game has outsold a Mario game on any Nintendo consoles?

🥺
It hurts my soul to se Metroid so low on this list, i did even buy Dread 3 times (one copy Digital, one fisical and the especial edition that i happen to find with 30% off)

@Maulbert I love Breath of the Wild. My favorite Zelda game and definitely the direction I personally want to see the series keep going... But I can't help but get frustrated when I see this idea that good sales have any weight at all against someone's personal opinion on something.

An individual's opinion isn't invalidated by good sales. Where did this notion even come from? Nintendo cares about sales because they're a corporation, but we are not them, we are customers. We come to Nintendo for entertainment. Sales are not part of opinions over enjoyment of a game.

As I said, I love BOTW. I'm really happy to see it sell well. But I wish people would stop using this argument that someone's opinion is overriden by sales. Like, yes, the corporation cares about sales, but that doesn't change our opinion over whether or not something is entertaining or not.

I wonder what the minimum threshold for a game to count as successful is?

I mean, it’s strange to see games sell “only” one million copies, but, one million, that’s like, a lot!

So I wonder, what level of sales does Nintendo view as being successful? What about third party sales? How many sales do they consider successful, almost none of them cracked this list, but they keep supporting the system, so presumably it’s worth their while…

Makes you realize there really are the have's & have-not's when it comes to massive game sales with certain franchises/games.

Also keeps in perspective how few games (especially non-Nintendo games) ever even break a million sales despite the console's high and ever-growing console sales.

As a sidebar: It would be interesting to somehow know development & marketing costs for games and then necessary sales to break-even and then also how many are needed to make a "decent" profit margin for every game if at all possible. Or even just a Net Profit/Loss based on lifetime sales of games- similar to how the movie industry is widely evaluated and most sales & costs are often public knowledge.

This is would provide a better gauge as to how much a game is considered a "success" business-wise moreso than just raw sales data.

@Alpha008 I know Fire Emblem Awakening needed to sell at least 1 million units or Nintendo would've ended the series, according to Intelligent Systems. It was the best-selling game in the series at the time with 2.4 million sold.

@Alpha008 It depends on the game, how many resources it required, and what the expectations are, etc. In general, companies want to make a profit, but they also have to consider other factors like opportunity cost. In Nintendo's case they also have to consider impact on system sales. Even though Bayonetta might not sell a huge number of copies, it probably contributes to system sales because it has a strong core fanbase

Of course if TOTK only sold one million that would be a huge failure. For Bayonetta 3 though 1 million is probably success. If you are an indy developer, 10000 sales might be a success

Weird that Prime remastered sold so little, it sort of took over my youtube recommendations for a while, seemed pretty hyped up.

@Harmonie You can enjoy or hate a game regardless of sales. Pokémon S/V is a prime example of how a lot of people [here anyway] voiced their hate about the current state of the game, but the fact is what you need to understand: You are in the minority in the end.

That is what matters in the end for series perception of successful experiment or failure. I don’t think anyone can legitimately argue that BoTW wasn’t a grand success. Were there haters especially from the OoT hardcores? Definitely. But they were in the minority. Sales is just another way to say “more people saw the game worth spending their money on”.

Sales isn’t the all be all, but so isn’t reviews. End of the day it’s your own opinion that determines if you buy a game or not. Just acknowledge BoTW [and very likely Tears] DOES appeal to way more gamers then any Zelda game before.

@Aerona It’s not a new game at end of day and Metroid was never a huge IP. Dread was a new game and considered a grand success for its IP, but sales wise it was always 3rd string in the Nintendo library. Japan not being a huge fan of Metroid doesn’t help either.

@_fatto_katto_ It's part of a huge franchise, it's a Fit game, like Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, and Wii Fit U. It plays a little different, but it's clearly part of the same franchise. I'd almost call it a spinoff, but since they're unlikely to put out another balance board, I think it can be safe to assume that the series will always have to change to adapt to newer consoles with newer peripherals rather than being the same formula each time.

@Rykdrew Advance Wars just got released weeks ago, and the sales report only goes to the end of March. You can't declare it a flop right now.

@NintendoWife completely agree, seems a lazy story. Also would have been nicer just as an updated table. We are all nintendo fans here so don't need a reminder about the game.

In the 90s we call these kind of games, the Player's Choice lineup and when a game is in the Player's Choice lineup they usually get sell with a cheaper price compare to what they were priced at when launch so if a game is $59.99 at launch, it usually will cost $29.99 via Player's Choice if that made it to the million unit sold.

@Arawn93 But I think this misunderstands the fact that when someone states an opinion they aren't saying "this product isn't successful because I don't like it". The metrics of someone's opinion and the financial success and/or popularity of a game are two completely different metrics. And that's my point here. The success/popularity of the game is irrelevant to an individual's opinion.

I think practically everyone knows that the game is successful. It's just pointing out the obvious and acting like it matters when it doesn't.

The time to argue a game is financially successful is when someone is arguing that the game wasn't successful. When discussing someone's opinion over a game, it has nothing to do with anything at all.

that is a lot of Pokemon sold considering the whinging that went on about all of them

66 Nintendo published titles for just one platform is really impressive (making a list of Nintendo published titles that didn't make It would have been much less demanding). Having said that, it's just too bad that Nintendo didn't release titles that didn't perform as well in the past, because with Switch's huge install base, they could have been franchise's best selling titles (Wave Race, 1080, Star Fox Zero, Pilotwings, Excite Truck, F-Zero, Kid Icarus)

The way people bang on about Splatoon being a major franchise, you'd expect them to be up much higher on this list.

Pretty sure SMT V wasn't published by Nintendo.

Can we have a list of first party Nintendo Switch titles that didn't sell over a million?

@Ralizah I think it was in Europe

So is this only a list of Nintendo published/ IP million sellers, or is it all. SMT V wasnt published by Nintendo.

@lacaras4 Ah. Makes sense, since Atlus doesn't have a strong publishing arm there.

More people need to pick up Xenoblade Chronicles 3, that game was stellar. Best in the series. (Shout out to Astral Chain as well)

Some of these sales figures have not been updated since 2021? Nintendo don’t release digital sales figures so what are they hiding? The first thing that comes to my mind is questions around tax but as I have no idea I’d love to know what everyone else thinks is the reason Nintendo don’t report digital sales. Also why isn’t this discussed?

Surprised to see Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch being a million seller, considering the game didn't come out in America, or at least not yet, meaning we didn't get/haven't gotten the official Switch stylus either.

I'm glad games like Miitopia and Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain are million sellers. Now, if only I could find a copy of Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics.

XB2 still best selling Xenoblade even without sale figures not being updated in over 2 years

@illmatic20xx

Nintendo is the publisher of SMT V in Europe

@Ralizah

Apart from Nintendo, Sega could have been the publisher of SMT V in Europe without any problems

What a library. Easily the best system ever made.

@lacaras4

Not counting digital sales:

-Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition
-Advance Wars
-Tokyo Mirage Sessions
-Sushi Striker
-Labo Robot Kit
-Labo Vehicle Kit
-Labo VR Kit
-Daemon x Machina
-Snipperclips
-Everybody 1-2 Switch

Should be able to add Pikmin 4 to that list too!

Numbers sold doesn’t mean quality! If Cola sells billions of drinks, does it mean it’s a great product? I would cross out the Pokémon abominations from the list because they sell just because they market it toward little kids. Most long time fans have given up on these games long ago. Low quality, games made by greedy untalented and lazy people who abuse marketing toward children! Peak example of disgusting business tactics that should be illegal.

@lacaras4
Here is a full list of first party games that did not sell over a million:

@reporterdavid

Come on man.

The tagline is "Every first-party game that has sold over one million copies." If Nintendo didn't publish it it isn't here(and also if they only publish a game in some regions rather then worldwide we likely won't get updates from Nintendo as they don't have all the sales captured and they rarely publish massive games for third parties anymore) For example triangle stratgey was self published by SE in Japan but published by Nintendo in America and Europe.)

Plenty of third party IP that are million sellers.

Monster Hunter Rise. Over 8 million
Suika Game: 3 Million
Dragon Ball FighterZ - 2.43M
Witcher 3: 1.8 Million
Resident Evil Reveleations collection 1.4m
Etc.

Mamy others we have partial data or no specific numbers but we know they have/have to had sold over a million. Games like

Stardew Valley
Minecraft(over 5 million just from Japan, Spain and French retail sales alone)
Dragon Quest XI: S
Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak
Crash Bandicoot N'Sane Trilogy
Etc.

I compiled a list a few weeks ago(some games have had updated numbers since mostly Nintendo first party games)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/189706-nintendo-switch/80601091

For the record Nintendo normally publishes sales of the top 10 all time Nintendo Published sellers per system + whatever Nintendo published that has sold over a million during the fiscal year. Otherwise we wait for CESA numbers once a year(usually in the summer) that cover up till the end of the prior year and covers games that sold over a million on a platform Life to date.

@sanderev

Everybody 1-2 Switch
Advance Wars Reboot Camp
Pikmin 1+2
Sushi Strikers
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
All Labo Kits except the Variety pack

The first 3 might make it by the end of the FY with Pikmim being most likely and 1-2 Switch being least likely.

Plus a few third party games games they published but not worldwide didn't make it either.

1 2 Switch sold more than Metroid?
This is it, there is no god...

@JimNorman Your list is great, but some of the games have gotten updates as of December 31st 2022 since then that you haven't updated yet.
This wikipedia article has all the most up to date officially published numbers:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_Switch_video_games

Pikmin 4 may not be one of the most sold Switch games, but it definitely was probably the most surprising for how well it did.

Pokemon is NOT a first party release. This list is still COMPLETELY inaccurate and misleading.

Amazing list!! One Switch to Rule Them All!!

@Deviant-Dork Nintendo published

look at all that mediocrity near the top

@John_Deacon
I mean, the original Super Mario Bros was a pack-in with Duck-Hunt. Of course that is going to be annoying to topple.

As for Metroid, while Dread is the best-selling game, its only about 200k copies above Metroid Prime on the Gamecube. And the Gamecube as we know it, only sold 22 million units. Switch is 133-135 million units. An increase of 230k is a bit low. And this was worse before Mercury Steam spoke up. Before then, Dread only lead by 60k over Prime and was under 3 million copies sold.

Metroid Dread needs to sell more! What a fantastic game, this and Prime Remastered should be in everyone's libraries.
Also Pikmin 4 guys, go get it if you're up for a treat. Same with Kirby & the Forgotten Lands, Zelda Link's Awakening and Super Mario 3D World. Not enough people know how good these games are.

It's amazing how Metroid both dread and Prime, Baynotta, astral chain , Mario Rpg , Shin megami tensi , xenolade and pikmin entries are all beaten by likes of switch sports, clubhouse games and ew 1 2 switch

Man, Animal Crossing at number 2… pretty good for a series that was once considered niche.
The pandemic did wonders for the Switch itself as well as that IP.
I wonder if there is a possibility we’ll see an Animal Crossing as a launch title for the next Switch.

Ring Fit feels like a missed opportunity. How has there not been a sequel or other follow up for a periphery that sold 15 millions copies? And the fact that there has not been even one indie game to use it makes me feel like Nintendo won’t allow anyone else to develop for the ring.

You keep postning this for every quarter but some of the numbers arent updated.
Tropical freeze ia listed as 4.12 million as of dec 2021 but the lastest figure is from Dec 2022 with 4.62 million sold.

Is Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope not a million seller? I know that should be reported by Ubisoft and at most we'd get the Japanese sales numbers directly from Nintendo as they published that version, but I'm sure they should know how much it has sold.

EDIT: Apparently it's close to 3 million units sold.

I would also actually like to know which non-first party games (if any) hit a million or more. Is there any way to find that out?