Last Tuesday, Nintendo released their quarterly financial report. Therefore, I thought it might be fun to visualise what Nintendo-published games have sold the best on the Nintendo Switch. Using the list of best-selling Switch Games on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_Switch_video_games), I created some graphs to show just how well Nintendo is doing. First, here is a graph comparing how each of Nintendo’s franchises have sold.
[Best selling franchises on Switch](https://preview.redd.it/eqhy0znd30ic1.png?width=1301&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc8553d81d0e0476c4a019edfb4c4b2c513431a5)
Something that is noticeble immediately is that when you combine all games from the Mario Franchise (Platformers, Kart, Party, Sports, etc.), this towers over every other Nintendo Franchise. The amount of Mario games sold on Switch is over double of the amount of Pokemon games sold. When we break down the Mario Franchise further, we get this graph:
[Mario Game Sales on Nintendo Switch](https://preview.redd.it/ohosq4yi50ic1.png?width=1300&format=png&auto=webp&s=ed88fb475589641e259cae1d864c32fc6951df8b)
We can clearly see that Mario Kart is bigger than both 3D and 2D Mario at this point. This is even more impressive when you consider that most of the Mario Kart sales on Switch comes from one single game, which was also a Wii U port. Compared that with 3D Mario, which has had 3 releases on Switch (Odyssey, 3D All-Stars and 3D World+Bowser’s Fury) and you can see just how popular Mario is.
Next let’s look at the other major Nintendo mainstay, Zelda:
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[Zelda Games on Nintendo Switch](https://preview.redd.it/oirmw3aw60ic1.png?width=1295&format=png&auto=webp&s=11cf99dafea49fea38c36c56f0f8ded81614d1b7)
Compared to Mario, Zelda’s sales may seem small at a first glance. But is is really impressive what Zelda’s Open-World entries has achieved for Zelda. If we just count Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom towards Zelda’s sales, it is still easily Nintendo’s third biggest franchise. The lack of a new 2D Zelda on the console looks like a major missed opportunity for Nintendo, as the Link’s Awakening, a full-price remake of a 30-year old GameBoy game, managed to sell over 6 million copies.
I would also like to take a look at some of Nintendo’s smaller franchises. Pikmin, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem and Metroid have all recieved a lot of support from the Big N on the Switch, so let’s take a look at if that effort has paid off.
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[Smaller franchises sales on the Switch](https://preview.redd.it/0pmpxe1680ic1.png?width=1302&format=png&auto=webp&s=40c6673b81c67ec494aa1c36a19c99c726e1f2af)
All of these franchises are doing solid numbers, with the real standout being Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ over 4 million sales. All mainline releases from these franchises did pass over 1 million copies sold, and each franchise recieved their best-selling title on the Switch. In short, the future of each of these franchises is looking bright.
Let’s also take a look at Pokemon:
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[Pokemon Sales on Switch](https://preview.redd.it/uxguj8wx90ic1.png?width=1292&format=png&auto=webp&s=d325bd3e1954b7f50e243163b269af5889cb622a)
The franchise has been constantly met with criticism during the Switch era, but the sales show no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are on their way to become the best-selling Pokemon Games on Switch.
Lastly, let’s take a look at the top 20 best-selling Switch Games:
https://preview.redd.it/6vfvn3m4b0ic1.png?width=1292&format=png&auto=webp&s=e940864a6b5a7c7824d821b39f5472d5d607705f
As you can see, no matter what franchise, Nintendo is doing really well. I hope you liked this post, I wanted to visualize their sales in a way that’s more fun than their financial reports so I hope this gave you some more insight. đ
Things to note:
1. Only titles which have sold over 1 million copies and was published by Nintendo in at least one region are included. Nintendo doesn’t release data for titles that have sold below 1 million.
2. Some of the titles included haven’t had their sales updated since December 2022. We know that these titles haven’t sold 1 million copies between April-December 2023, but the real number of copies sold is certainly bigger than the current number.