The Nintendo Switch 2 was officially released on June 5, 2025 and immediately recorded very impressive sales, with over 3.5 million units sold in just the first four days. However, behind the success of Nintendo's next-generation console lies a big challenge for third-party game developers. Recent data shows that sales of third-party games on Switch 2 still lag far behind Nintendo's own first-party games.
First-Party Game Domination on Switch 2
According to a report from NielsenIQ, about 86% of Switch 2's physical game sales came from first-party games, mainly due to bundles Mario Kart World which is very popular. If bundle sales are not counted, this figure drops to 48%, but still shows the strong dominance of Nintendo exclusive games. In the United States, Circana data also shows that 68% of Switch 2 physical game sales were first-party games, even without bundles.
The best-selling third-party games on Switch 2 currently are Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition. However, Sega became the biggest third-party publisher for releasing several titles at once, such as Yakuza 0: Director's Cut and Sonic X Shadows Generations. Even so, some third-party publishers admitted that their sales were "below the lowest estimate", even though the Switch 2 itself was very marketable.
Factors Causing Low Third-Party Sales
There are several factors that are thought to be the cause of the low sales of third-party games on Switch 2. First, Mario Kart World Many gamers bought the console to play Nintendo-exclusive games, so their attention was focused on first-party titles.
Secondly, the Switch 2 has a backward compatibility feature that allows users to play games from the first generation Switch. This makes many gamers already have a collection of games that can be directly played on the Switch 2, so the interest in buying new third-party games is lower.
Third, the data currently available only includes physical sales. It's possible that digital sales of third-party games are better, but there's no hard data to confirm that.
Future Opportunities
Although first-party games currently dominate, the opportunity for third-party games to thrive on Switch 2 is still wide open. Nintendo still has some big titles coming out, such as Donkey Kong Bananza and Pokemon Legends: Z-A. In addition, exclusive third-party games such as The Duskbloods FromSoftware also has the potential to attract market attention and increase sales of third-party games in the future.
The gamer community itself thinks that this situation could still change over time. Many believe that as time goes on and there are more interesting third-party titles, sales of third-party games on Switch 2 will increase.
Sales of third-party games on the Nintendo Switch 2 currently lag far behind those of first-party games. However, with the huge market potential and a variety of exciting titles to come, the opportunity for third-party developers to succeed on the Switch 2 remains open. Going forward, closer collaboration between Nintendo and third-party publishers could be key to creating a more balanced and diverse gaming ecosystem on Switch 2.
Source: Gamerant
