Switch 2 Passes 26M Sold as Quarterly Sales Drop 41 Percent

The Switch 2 has now reached 26.35 million units sold since its June 2025 launch, though the 2.67 million consoles Nintendo moved during the quarter ended September 30 is down 41 percent from the 4.54 million it sold in the same quarter last year, when the console had just passed 10 million. The first half of the fiscal year now sits at 6.49 million units against 10.36 million over the same stretch last year, a 37 percent decline. Nintendo says consumers continued to adopt the system during the period, helped by new releases.

Switch 2 software sales went the other direction, rising 26 percent year over year to 15.03 million units for the quarter, with first-half sales up 18.8 percent to 24.49 million. That brings the platform’s lifetime software total to 73.21 million. The best-selling title in Nintendo’s first-half table is Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream at 8.81 million units, and it’s a Switch game rather than a Switch 2 one. Rhythm Heaven Groove, also on the original Switch, reached 2.89 million, while Splatoon Raiders sold 2.42 million on Switch 2 since its July 23 launch. In my review, I said few games have kept me this hooked in 2026, even with its rough edges.

Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave sold 1.34 million units in its first two weeks after launching on September 17, and Star Fox reached 1.17 million since June 25. Mario Kart World added another 1.78 million over the six months for a lifetime total of 16.48 million, while Pokémon Pokopia, which I called the best Pokémon game I’ve ever played, sits at 4.04 million in Nintendo’s figures, which exclude sales in Japan, after adding 360,000 units in the quarter. The original Switch sold 610,000 consoles in the quarter, down 33 percent, bringing it to 157.20 million lifetime, while its software sales fell 14 percent year over year to 31.92 million units as lifetime Switch software passed 1.59 billion.

On the financial side, net sales for the first half fell 12.1 percent to 966.0 billion yen, while operating profit rose 49.1 percent to 216.5 billion yen. Nintendo attributes the profit jump to software making up a larger share of sales and roughly $300 million in refunded U.S. tariffs booked in the first quarter, which helped lift its gross margin by 14.2 points to 50.4 percent. Digital sales rose 60.5 percent to 249.6 billion yen, accounting for 60.7 percent of software revenue, and IP-related income nearly doubled to 62.7 billion yen thanks in part to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Looking at the rest of the fiscal year, Nintendo says it has factored roughly 100 billion yen in higher component costs, particularly memory, and tariffs into its cost of sales.

Back in May, I said the bigger question was whether Nintendo could keep its momentum going through year two, and the full-year forecast hasn’t moved since then: 16.5 million Switch 2 consoles and 60 million Switch 2 games, plus two million original Switch consoles and 105 million Switch games. That leaves just over 10 million Switch 2 units to sell in the back half of the fiscal year. The lineup for that stretch includes The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time today, Pikmin 4 Switch 2 Edition with Dandori Academy on November 12, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Switch 2 Edition on December 3, Metroid Ravenous on January 28, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Definitive Edition on February 25, and Kirby and the World Beyond in spring 2027, with Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves and Xenoblade Genesis still listed for 2027.