Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom "Most Downloaded" Switch Game In The First Half Of 2023 (Japan)

Still fighting the move to digital. You may have won on film and music, but games are my last stand. Long live physical.

Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable are in the chart, while Persona 5 Royal is nowhere to be seen... That's not good. And, there's no fighting games in the chart. That's disappointing and sad...

When I have enough gold points from physical game purchases I will get Kirby's Dream Buffet.

@Vyacheslav333 In all fairness, P5R has also been out on Switch for 3 months longer than 3 and 4 have been so it very well could’ve had more digital sales in 2022 instead of 2023. It was also the only one of the bunch to actually get a physical release which likely didn’t help digital sales. I’m admittedly a bit biased since 4 Golden is my favorite game of all time, but nothing says P5R was unsuccessful.

Digital is for Indies, unless there’s a really good deal in the price to buy digital.

Wouldn’t be surprised if TOTK sells more than Breath of the Wild, and that was already the top selling Zelda game by a country mile

Fire Emblem Engage being in the second spot is quite surprising but then again the series is most popular in Japan. It will be very interesting to see whether or not we get another Fire Emblem Echoes game before the next system.

@Vyacheslav333 P5R isn’t cheap base price like the other two games. It was still $60 for awhile for a late port of a game a lot of people played already on other platforms before the price cut. P4G/P3P was 1/3rd the price. Also you can get actually get P5R physically on Switch unlike the other two.

Glad to see Fire Emblem Engage selling so well. What a pure joy that was to play, rekindled the fire I had for the series big time.

2nd to the almighty TotK? Yeah, I'm totally cool with that.

@Duncanballs Games and music for me. I really can't stand the exclusivity of movies on streaming platforms, the rising subscription prices, and password policing. If I can't find it on Blu-ray, I don't care, I will pirate it. As for games, I think the positives of digital outweigh the negatives. Personally, I find it a bit inconvenient to be contantly swapping carts or discs. I also don't find collecting games all that special anymore since you no longer get manuals and extras. Your disc or cart feels more like a physical product key nowadays than what a SNES cart was.

@Linux7055 I think the main issue is that I can largely access films and music of the last 100 years digitally. The risk to gaming at present is that too many games of the past can only be played legally physical and on the original hardware.

Biggest loss with music was the album art.

I read the title and immediately though "I bet Human Fall Flat is #2!" I guess 17 is still pretty impressive considering how long it's been around. Man... I wish Japanese people were better at finding good games in the eShop.

Love to see Fire Emblem Engage at number 2. It's one of my favourite games of the year so far along with ToTK.

I can't get how people buy digitally when you can get a physical copy. I know many games won't ever get a physical edition, but games like Zelda are better owned than rented

@Princess_Lilly - I buy Splatoon digitally so that my daughter and I can play at the same time. Her switch is the main and I play on my profile on my switch. I’d need 2 physical otherwise

@Vyacheslav333 why would Persona 5 be in the rankings for "most downloaded games in the first half of 2023" when it came out in October 2022?

Persona 4G is the only one I’ve bought digitally this year, as I tend to prefer physical. However, the lack of Metroid Prime Remastered is a real surprise, especially as it was a digital-first release. To not even crack the top 30 ahead of something like Story of Seasons is pretty weak.

Powerwash Sim devs must feel squeaky clean

I believe that no one is surprised by this news!! Cause this game is that good🔥🔥🔥

@Arawn93 @Slim_in_Blue Okay. I kinda forgot that the game have a 60$ price tag.
@Itachi2099 Eh? What?... With the logic like this... Why would Minecraft be in the rankings for "most downloaded games in the fist half of 2023" when it came out on Switch in 2017/2018? Also, what's about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe(2017)? Mario Party Superstars(2021)? Among Us(2020)? They are in the chart as well.

@Vyacheslav333 Minecraft is literally one of the most popular games ever. There was even a recent article here that a lot of those sales come from the Switch. Minecraft is practically evergreen.

That sounds good already. They still haven’t updated their sales figures list for some reason (normally they update it quarterly, after every financial report) :
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/index.html
Curious if TOTK will make the Top10 straight away.

As for the move to digital: Yeah it’s worrying. Nintendo would clearly prefer that, like all the others too.

They opened an online store here in Germany recently, but I’m hesitant to buy there… should the other retailers eventually drop out of the physical games business Nintendo will stop making cartridges in an instant.

Usually only purchase games as digital as a last resort if i can't get a physical copy at local retailers. Like when Pokemon Violet and Scarlet released all local retailers was sold out.

I’ve had enough of all these sales figures without sales figures!

@Arawn93 I know it.

@kurtasbestos hey i'm just happy not to see Fortnite at No2

@Princess_Lilly $50 vs $70 at launch.

It's also nice having easy access to the game anywhere, without having to worry if a plastic card is inserted in my system. Also allowed my nephew, who shares digital games with me, to play it at the same time.

People get hung up on the concept of ownership, but chances are by the time that becomes a legitimate issue with digital Switch games, we're going to be multiple systems down the road, and I'll probably want to play the remaster/remake anyway.

There are a few games I want physically (pre-ordered a physical copy of Pikmin 4 because I know my sister will also want to play it at some point), but, by and large, I've embraced digital, and I think that'll increasingly become the case with all but the most hardcore dinosaurs in this hobby.

My only issues with digital over physical for games is that I generally trade in as soon as I have completed to put towards the next game I want to buy, I also do the same for blu ray and 4K unless it's a collectors title I really want to keep.

However, it is still a business model first and foremost, so it's very likely that digital will be the way of the future and physical discs will be reserved for collector/limited editions only - if you look at the music/film market now, the markup on re-released/special editions are growing, so it's likely the games market will follow suit very very quickly.