Here Are The Top Ten Best-Selling Nintendo Switch Games As Of June 2020

The only surprise is how fast Animal Crossing are selling. I didn't buy and I'm sure I'll never do, but I respect the accomplishment

2 deluxes in the top 10.

And people are being mad at Nintendo for giving a bigger install base the opportunity to buy upgraded Wii U games.

@Friendly MK8DX was quite an upgrade and included all the DLC. People shouldn’t complain too much about it.
I wish the other DX titles really warranted being called DX like MK8DX did.

Super Mario Odyssey not even in the top 5, although 18+ mollion is not exactly to be sniffed at...

Another reason why Nintendo should support Mario Party with DLC. We still need more boards, characters and mini games.

It's a right shame MK8D continues to outsell CTR.

With new update for Fall season events, ACNH will surpass Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sales.
I still keep playing ACNH everyday. 😁

To be completely honest I’m shocked. I thought the sales numbers would be way higher than that for these games. BOTW was a launch game and for it to have such a low number of sales (in my opinion) compared to the port of MK8 is baffling. Also there are no third party games on this list!

Some major milestones:
> Pokemon Sword/Shield is the best-selling game in the series in the last 20 years.
> Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee has outsold Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green.
> Breath of the Wild has outsold Mario Odyssey, marking the first time a core Zelda title has outsold a core Mario title on the same platform.
> Animal Crossing New Horizons is the fastest-selling Nintendo game in history, and it's not even close. It is also the only game to ever sell 10+ million units in a financial quarter outside of its launch quarter.
> Smash Bros Ultimate is the first fighting game in history to cross 20 million units shipped.

@GameOtaku
This is a first-party only list.

Mario Kart has been much more popular than Zelda since its inception. The fact that Mario Kart 8 DX has "only" sold 45% more than Breath of the Wild is very good. By comparison, Mario Kart Wii sold 3× more than Twlight Princess Wii and Skyward Sword combined.

@GameOtaku Breath of the Wild is far and away the highest selling Zelda game of all time, which is incredible. Just because some other games are also killing it with sales doesn’t take away from that achievement.

@westman98 There are no third party Switch games selling this much.

@roboshort well,

• Mario U Deluxe included Luigi U
• Funky mode in Tropical Freeze and visual improvements
• Bayonetta 1 and 2 came in a double pack
• pikmin comes with coop, difficulty modes, more story content and all DLC
• Tokyo Mirage sessions FE Encore has an extra dungeon, extra options, all DLC

I’d say Captain Toad Treasure Tracker and Hyrule Warriors deserve a bit of flack for not having much differences with the Wii U version. The others.... Nintendo improved them quite a bit, or they came as a bundle of multiple games?

Every other company is doing this. Last of Us remastered, anyone? Just a visual upgrade, but full price.

@BANJO Jep!

I think, with these kind of single player games, sales drop very hard once people are starting to sell their used copy on eBay or something similar. Makes sense multiplayer games or continuous games are outselling Mario.

Then again, Splatoon 2 could use some extra boosting! Some fresh paint. 10 mil could be much higher with the current install base I’d say

@sanderev
I'm not denying that at all - I'm just saying that even if there were 3rd party games that were this successful, those 3rd party games wouldn't appear on this list because it's a first party list.

@westman98 Is that true? the article says Switch's best-sellers, not Nintendo-published Switch best-sellers. EDIT: Reading fail.

Although I would be very-curious about a third-party-only Switch best-seller list. If I recall correctly, there's a couple multi-plat titles where the devs said the Switch version was their best seller, like Bloodstained, IIRC?

@Friendly Most games on PS4 / XBOX ONE were "HD" versions of older games. Luckily next gen will have BC with current gen (at least for all XBOX ONE games, and most PS4 games), with graphical upgrades in patches.

Also releasing deluxe versions of Wii U games is really smart, not many people had a Wii U. So all these people can experience these games first on Switch. Where most people who bought a PS4 / XBOX ONE also had a PS3 / XBOX 360.

That's a lot of copies! Some kind of sales record?

@shazbot
The list is taken directly from Nintendo's website of top-selling Nintendo titles.

@Friendly Yes, Splatoon 2 has dropped off abit.. These new Splatfests announced a short while ago should help propell sales again.. Some people I know who have Splatoon 2 have only played literally 1 maybe 2 Splatfests... It's good that there will be more soon...

@shazbot It literally says it in the article.

"You can see the full top ten below (bear in mind that the data only references Nintendo-published titles)."

If BotW 2 releases and they do a half price or better sale on BotW, I bet those sales figures will shoot up. Infact all these titles should make it to Switch Selects range maybe next year? £19.99. if Nintendo is raking in the profit they must be thinking about "good will" offers about now.

Several very worthy games on this list, others not so much. The two Pokemon games and NSMBUD selling that high make me want to vomit.

@westman98
Zelda was a launch title and imho has more going for it than a niche like racing games. Being a launch title alone is reason for me to think it’s numbers should’ve been a lot higher.

@GameOtaku I’m not positive, but I’m fairly sure that BOTW sales/copies for Wii U aren’t being accounted for in this total. That might be a factor in why this list reflects a surprisingly lower sales number in comparison to the other games that were all released after it, considering BOTW was the launch game for the Switch. I don’t think it would sell more than MK, but I think it definitely could be closer to AC sales numbers, if not, right behind it above Smash.

Shame NSMBUDX has done so well compared to Mario Maker 2. While MM2 wasnt as significant of a sequel and was stripped of some features compared to the first game, its vastly superior compared to the mediocre lack of effort NSMBU was plus the single player mode had more love and far better level design was much better too.

Seriously, if you want a 2D Mario and you dont have either...get Mario Maker 2. Once you've done with the SP, you have thousands of excellent user created levels/Worlds to grab too. The variety is excellent too.

Wrong link for the hardware sales part!

@shazbot Yup! This list is solely Nintendo published games, even back in the first quarter of the system's life when they hadn't released 10 games total yet.

@roboshort Eh? What about Pikmin 3 Deluxe. They just announced a title with added co-op to the main story, new story content, achievements (meh), all dlc, updated controls, and a new bestiary with written entries from each of the 5 captains. Also, multiple difficulty modes.

Pretty sure thats more content than MK8 DX adding just the new battle mode. If that's not enough for a Deluxe rerelease of Pikmin 3, not sure what you'd want.

@mr_me450

Exactly. BOTW is a sales beast. It legs are amazing for a zelda game. It sold 1.19 this quarter vs 0.65 for odyssey.

It could never hold up to the “big boys” but now it can!

Mario Kart 8 isn't a racing game, it's a PARTY GAME. It's in the same sort of league as Smash Bros in that when people are over at your house and they see you have a Switch they want a game to play with you where other people can watch and have fun and laugh at the craziness. Mario Kart, Mario Party and Smash Bros are Nintendo's big party games.

I honestly have to wonder what the Mario Kart team is working on. I imagine they have a game that's done but they're probably waiting for whatever comes out when they do a hardware refresh. (I'm very confident that a year or maybe 2 after the launch of the PS5, Nintendo will release a 'new' Switch, though hopefully with better branding. It'll play all Switch games, and most of its games will be able to run on the previous Switch, just with reduced graphics fidelity. So the next Pokemon game will come out and work on old hardware, but also look way better on the new hardware.)

Part of me wonders if they'll call the next one Mario Kart 9, or if they'll do something like 'Super Smash Kart' or 'Super Nintendo Kart' (they're already bringing in racers from other games in Mario Kart). It would allow them to be more playful with mechanics without having to worry about whether it's still a Mario Kart game.

Anyway as far as Zelda's sales, it's sold incredibly well. It's a beloved franchise but it's never been as big of a seller as Mario Kart was.

Amazing sales numbers for single console games

@Friendly They didn't remove The Last of Us from sale on the PS Store for the PS3 though.

Those numbers and rankings are what talks. Nintendo knows exactly what they're doing. No question.

@DavidMac It feels really odd to say that a kart racer is not a racing game. I believe what you really mean is that MK8 it is not a driving game, correct ?
Party games can be of any genre: board, racing, platformer, fighting, puzzle etc.

Surprised Mario Party sold more than Splatoon 2.

Mario party continues to do well and online is always busy!
Can we get some DLC already?!?!?

More Wii U ports, the better. I never had one, There are 50 odd million Switch owners that never owned a Wii U.

Wow, surpassing smash ultimate in just 4 months is insane growth for Animal Crossing, I see it as a legitimate contender to dethrone MK8D. That is unless Nintendo does some out of left field Mario Anniversary cup dlc for Mario Kart, with tracks based on Mario 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey to celebrate his 35th. Maybe add characters from each of those eras like King Bombomb/Petey Pirahna/Luma/Pauline, add the New Donk taxi as a kart and Peach's Castle Courtyard as a new battle arena. Haha sorry got carried away, but my point is if they can manage to inject new life into 8 Deluxe I can see them staying on top. Otherwise, AC with monthly updates is gonna catch up.

@Friendly Mario is the Deluxe sandwich holding the top ten together. I, for one, love the idea that these Wii U ports have been making landfall on the Switch. Pikmin 3 Deluxe is particularly exciting.

I really wish Nintendo would give updated sales numbers for more then just their top 10 selling games. I would love to see how some other games are selling on the system.... particularly Tropical Freeze!

@BANJO Eh, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are all kissing eachother's heels. But honestly, it's not uncommon to see the single player games fall behind the multiplayer games over time. Odyssey was number one for a good year, it just isn't going to have the same legs as Mario Kart, Animal Crossing or Smash. And while it's a phenomenal game, Breath of the Wild was destined to overtake it on hype factor alone some day.

@TioRogerio somebody higher up had said that Mario Kart is just a racing game. Probably should have replied directly to them.

What I meant to say it’s not first a racing game in the same sense that GT or Forza is.

I own every game on this list except for Splatoon 2.

@Friendly Hyrule warriors for switch included all the 3ds content which was significant. It was actually a huge upgrade from both the original wii u title and the 3ds version

@Deltath I agree, it dosen't have all the key elements to make it a continued success going forwards.... Regardless, with 18 million I'm sure it returned them a very good profit...

Not covered in this article but glad to see both XCDE and club house selling over 1 million copies.

Makes sense for MK8 to be in top place because it was a really super super popular game on Wii U.

@GameOtaku
Mario Kart is nowhere even close to being niche lol

@GameOtaku
Mario Kart has been Nintendo's best selling series since the DS/Wii era.

@westman98 While technically it's true that it's first party only because Nintendo published it, you can easily find ones that include third party and the best selling third party game is Octopath Traveler at 2 million units sold at 21st on the list. So even if this list includes third party titles, it still wouldn't have any on it.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is actually an outlier. It’s underselling Mario Kart Wii by 11 million, despite being a launch title, while other top tier games are already at the top of their respective series. A Mario Kart 9, which won’t ever happen on the Switch now, would’ve sold far more. Animal Crossing will hopefully soon outsell it as well.

@GameOtaku You thought the sales would be way higher for these games? What reality are you from? These numbers are insanely good. Insanely. The best selling PS4 game is Grand Theft Auto 5 with 20 million sold. That's on a system with nearly double the Switch's install base and still less sales than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Sony's best selling first party PS4 title (and the second best selling PS4 game in general) is Uncharted 4 at 16 million, which is millions below anything in the top 6 for Switch, again, with an install base that's nearly double for PS4. AND Uncharted 4 was a pack-in title for all slim PS4 units for several years. Hell, that's how I got my copy of Uncharted 4 and it's still in the shrink wrap.

These numbers are unprecedentedly high for Switch. Off the literal charts. If you expected more, then you're expecting something unfathomable. As for lack of third party.. what third party game can hope to best Nintendo on their own console when Nintendo's numbers are so insanely high? Not to mention, most of the big third party games, like The Witcher or Doom, even though they've sold well, they were inferior ports of existing titles. These companies are happy to sell another 500k-1 million units on Switch, but the majority of their sales already happened on other consoles or PC.

The Switch also doesn't have many third party AAA exclusives. The two biggest ones they've probably had, Mario + Rabbids and Octopath, are unsurprisingly the first and second best selling third party games on the system. And they did incredibly well for their niche genres. Octopath sold nearly as many copies on Switch as Final Fantasy XV did on PS4, and Octopath did that back when the Switch had only 24 million users.

@Deltath
The issue is we rarely ever get public information on 3rd party game sales in general.

For example, Minecraft has sold 1.4 million retail copies in Japan alone, so it has definitely outsold Octopath Traveler by a lot once you add in sales from other territories as well as digital numbers.

@Euler
Mario Kart 8 DX will outsell Mario Kart Wii by the end of 2021 at its current sales trajectory.

@westman98 It hasn’t so far, even though it would’ve if it was a new title, and we’ll see how the current trajectory holds.

@BANJO Yeah, I mean, it was a huge success for sure.

@Deltath
Considering the switch is beating the nes lifetime sales and Mario duck hunt being bundled with it makes since for it to have the highest number of sales. BOTW was offered with bundles (I’m I not correct in this?) so it would just make sense for BOTW to have much larger sales numbers than MK8 which was released later.

@DavidMac How so? ... the game is about accelerating and steering a vehicle throught a circuit and surpassing adversaries in order to reach the best place possible after a number of laps ... if that´s not primarly racing, then what it is? It´s a cartoonish one for sure, but still a racing game.
That´s why it is more accurate to say that it is not a driving game, since this term usually refers to driving simulation and not cartoony driving.
"Party game" is not essentially a genre. It´s just a general term for any game with 4-player co-op/simultaneos play is a party game, no matter the genre.

@GameOtaku
There has been no Nintendo produced bundles with the Switch and BOTW, MK8 DX for the past 2 years has been in a Switch bundle for Black Friday though.

Also MK8DX is the closest the Mario Kart series has been to launch of the console that it's released for (just over one month). Mario Kart has been Nintendo' biggest franchise for a long time now, so it would make sense that it's also the best selling on Switch.

is impressive that Animal Crossing New Horizons managed to sold so well in only 4 months since it lauch, and is close to destrone Mario Kario 8 Deluxe and become Switch highest selling game, specially with the upcoming fall or winter update, adding, Brewster and the Roost expanded like a real Cafeteteria/Restaurant, Gyriods, the Cooking/Farming mechanic with the depth of the Crafting /DIY system.

@Toy_Link
I thought the biggest would’ve been Zelda or Mario. Mario in the traditional sense anyway.

@GameOtaku
Before BOTW, the only Zelda games in the top 5 of the console it was on were OoT on N64 and Wind Waker on NGC. And both times Mario Kart was the better seller (with Double Dash selling 2X more copies than Wind Waker).

SMW, Mario 64, and, NSMB DS have outperformed their Mario Kart counterpart on that system. Every other Mario Kart other than those have been the best selling Mario game on that console (unless if you count Smash Melee as a Mario game LOL).

@GameOtaku Though several people already chimed in, I'll still summarize it. First off, Nintendo has never made any Switch bundles. Walmart running a Black Friday sale with a game is not the same as a real bundle that is the only way to buy a system for years, like was the case with the NES or the PS4. Also, the bundles available in stores with the Switch that offer games have all been different. Best Buy and Walmart both did Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundles. Some did Mario Odyssey bundles. Some have done Smash. Etc.

Next, you're saying a game SHOULD have sold more because it came out sooner? If every game had equal popularity, this might be possible, but that's not the case. Nintendo has always had the most success with their Blue Ocean titles like Mario Kart. Zelda was never one of their top earning franchises. Breath of the Wild has done a lot to turn that around, but Mario Kart is still wildly more popular and more successful as a franchise overall. Also, big single player games like Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey, The Last of Us or Sekiro, these games sell insanely well.. at first. But a lot of the excitement around them dies down as they become less significant on social media and in the general social consciousness. People get hyped for the next big single player game and slowly move on from the older ones. But competitive multiplayer games don't have this happen, generally, until a newer and better sequel comes out. Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Smash, etc will continue to climb at a faster rate than the older single player games. Almost guaranteed.

Also, a lot of gamers and families buy Nintendo systems specifically for the multiplayer stuff, anyway.

@Euler
Mario Kart 8 DX had sold 7-8 million copies annually in 2017, 2018, and 2019. It has sold ~3.7 million copies in the first half of 2020, so it will likely sell 8+ million copies this year.

Mario Kart 8 DX had considerably lower launch sales than Mario Kart Wii since it launched when the Switch was <2 months old, but it has much stronger legs.

Bundling is kind of a chicken or egg thing. Nintendo packs games in with their consoles because they know they're E ticket games that sell very well. Most people who buy the console would buy them anyway, and they can be considered system sellers or killer apps. If Nintendo had launched the Switch with Pikmin 4 bundled in, the game still wouldn't have sold as well as Mario Kart (and the bundle likely would've quickly been replaced with something else).

@Deltath
I’m probably in the minority but single player experience should always be first and foremost and multiplayer should always be optional not the main focus.
@Euler
Bundling helps consumers out a lot. It’s ridiculous to buy a product and not have the media to play it. Tetris was a big seller on Gameboy and it was perfect for the system. When I got mine it came with Killer Instinct. My PSP Dissidia and Advent Children.

@westman98 Diminishing returns. It will sell less in 2021 because there are fewer and fewer people that want it but don't have it yet. There will also (hopefully) be more games to choose from by then.

@Noid,

As good as crash is, it will never beat Mario Kart.

Who is still buying Let's Go?

@Euler
Mario Kart 8 DX annual shipments:
> 2017: 7.33 million
> 2018: 7.69 million
> 2019: 7.94 million
> 2020: 3.78 million (Jan - Jun)

Mario Kart 8 DX is not selling like a normal game.

@GameOtaku I mean that’s just the way things are. What’s there to be shocked or baffled about?
People made their choices. With their wallets. End of story
Somewhere out there are millions of people playing games they bought and honestly I couldn’t be happier for every single one of them!

I'm actually very surprised Minecraft isn't in the top ten.

o.O I can't believe a game just released like 5 months ago sold over 20 million worlwide.
Maybe this happened before with many free-to-play mobile games, but this... is a whole other level.