The Nintendo Switch 2: One Year In

Photo by Dmitry Spravko on Unsplash

On the 5th of June 2026, the one year anniversary of Nintendo's new console was celebrated. The Nintendo Switch 2 released with much anticipation due to how historically well its predecessor did. After the grand failure of the Wii U, the original Nintendo Switch truly shook the industry back to life with one of the greatest console runs ever witnessed, with a monumental 152 million hardware sales and 1.5 billion software sales in its lifetime. So how has its fancy new sequel competed within its first year?

After a full year, the Switch 2 has reached hardware sales of 19.86 million units, far outperforming the original’s 15 million units sold in the same time frame. Clearly the Switch 2 has made a strong early impression, but why exactly is this? As mentioned earlier, the Switch 1 released only four years after the Wii U, the second biggest commercial console failure in gaming history with a measly 13 million sales. The Nintendo Switch was created as a big comeback for the company, forcing them to put everything they had into it so they could escape the rut they buried themselves in. The desperation they faced is what made the Switch such an incredible console. This cannot exactly be said for the Switch 2. Following Nintendo’s greatest success leaves the company little incentive to really innovate. A simple sequel console that expands on the original is all that Nintendo required to stay comfortable. This bore fruit for the company, with the 4.86 million unit boost from the Switch 2, but this kind of thinking is exactly what led to their previous failures. The commercial loss from the GameCube led to the massively successful Wii, which then led to a sequel console that greatly failed. The original Switch seems to have garnered enough good will for the Switch 2 for it to carry this boost in sales, but nevertheless, Nintendo should be worried about history repeating itself.

The software sales for the Switch 2 are at 48 million units after a year, underperforming compared to its predecessor, which in the same amount of time reached 63 million units. Despite the much greater hardware numbers, the Switch 2 has sold significantly less games, but why is this? A possible reason could be the exclusivity of the games themselves. Both the Switch and Switch 2 released with titles that were also released on the previous console (Pokémon Legends: Z-A and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) as well as releasing with new games that were exclusive to their respective consoles. However, a key difference in sales performance was based on the failure of the Wii U. Many people who bought a Switch 1 likely skipped the Wii U and thus never played games like Splatoon or Mario Kart 8. However, those who bought a Switch 2, likely already owned a Switch or any of its variations beforehand and thus got little value out of buying ports of games that they could already play on the original Switch. 

This leads into my next point: the choice in launch titles for both consoles. The Switch, eager to impress due to its circumstances, brought revolutionary game entries that had industry wide impact such as Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Mario Odyssey. These games became staples of their respective series and required entirely new engines to be developed for them. The Switch 2 instead cements itself as a sequel to the Switch by having launch titles that merely build off of older Switch entries instead of creating anything new. Donkey Kong Bananza, though successful, never reached the heights of Odyssey despite using the same specially made engine as it. Pokémon Legends: Z-A also uses the engine of older Pokémon games, specifically Pokémon Sword and Shield. 

After a year the Switch 2 has held up with strong hardware sales but has seen less excitement from the games it has released so far. Perhaps the console needs more time to show off bigger releases, but for now it seems to have gained all of its notoriety from the reputation of the original rather than making any big waves on its own. Nintendo have gotten complacent before in similar situations, so we can only hope that they don’t repeat this mistake in the future. 

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Edited by Joanne Baranga, Gaming Editor