It’s fair to say that Nintendo’s had a pretty good few months. After just four days, the Switch 2 had sold 3.5 million units, making it the most successful console launch of all time. Nintendo is now reporting it sold just shy of six million Switch 2s in the system’s first month, along with 8.6 million games. Of those, an incredible 5.63 million are copies of Mario Kart World. Alongside that, the console company still sold a million new Switch 1s in three months, and over 24 million games for that system. All told, from April to June, the company made sales of 572 billion yen, or $3.8 billion. It’s good to be Nintendo right now.
All those numbers take us up to the end of June, meaning there’s actually a whole other month of as-yet unreported Switch 2 sales to take into account, meaning that number is likely closer (by our estimate) to eight million, ahead of Nintendo’s expectations, and well on the way to the company’s goal of 15 million units by March 2026. And don’t forget, they’ve got 2025’s holiday season to come before then.
Interestingly, digital sales were down over 13 percent on the same quarter last year, which Nintendo attributes to, er, “a decrease in sales of downloadable versions of packaged software.” Well, yeah, selling fewer digital games would certain explain the lower sales of digital games. Piercing insight. There was also a drop in what Nintendo calls “IP related business,” down 4.4 percent, which is explained by “a decrease in movie-related revenue.” That’s actually a pretty impressively small drop, given it’s two years since The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released.
Mario Kart World‘s sales of almost six million, in large part a consequence of the game being offered as a bundle with the Switch 2 itself, make it the most successful Mario Kart launch ever–that’s pretty stunning given there was no previously established userbase for the console. For context, Mario Kart Wii launched two years after the Wii came out, and sold an estimated 4.7 million copies in its first four months. Mario Kart 7 was limited by the low sales of the 3DS, but Mario Kart 8 had the reverse effect, causing people to finally buy the unloved Wii U, selling nearly 3 million copies in its first month. However, it only reached 8.5 million lifetime sales. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch is still the big leader, with astonishing lifetime sales of over 64 million copies, but even that was slower out of the gates than Mario Kart World. That game took a year to get to nine million copies, meaning World is well on its way to smashing that number.
It’s notable that given 5.82 million Switch 2s have been sold (and that’s sold to real people, rather than just shipped to stores), and 5.63 million copies of Mario Kart World, that the game is almost ubiquitous among the console owners. That means people who didn’t opt for–or were unable to buy–the bundle have been buying a separate copy anyway. Yes, fair enough, it’s not like people were spoiled for choice when the Switch 2 launched, but it remains a remarkable number. It’ll be fascinating to see how Donkey Kong Bananza has sold, and even more fascinating to visit the alternate reality where Nintendo had that game ready for launch.
