Since December, we’ve been seeing (and writing!) headlines discussing the seeming slowdown of Nintendo Switch 2 sales going into the holiday season.
And that narrative feels right, doesn’t it? We’ve seen prices on everything rise this year, and increasing economic uncertainty especially in the U.S. The Nintendo Switch 2 also didn’t have a huge holiday game release (my apologies to Metroid Prime 4) to bolster sales through Black Friday and December. It just makes sense that holiday sales were down.
But there’s some nuance to this narrative, and not just because so many people seem to be taking this as a sign of doom for the Nintendo Switch 2. So I kicked off the new year by bugging all the analysts I knew for some further context on Nintendo Switch 2’s holiday sales: if they were down, why they were down if so, and what it all means for the Switch 2’s future.
Did the Nintendo Switch 2 actually have a bad holiday?
Nah.
Were sales slower than they were earlier in the year? Sure. But that was neither shocking nor concerning to any analyst I spoke to.
Manu Rosier, director of market intelligence at Newzoo, described the Nintendo Switch 2’s sales thus far as having a strong initial surge of adoption, followed by “normalization.” “There are signs of a Q4 normalization versus the launch window, reflecting a shift from launch-driven demand (scarcity, bundles, pent-up interest) to a more typical, steady-state demand mix,” he said. This trend was echoed across the globe, with Rosier and several of the other analysts I spoke to all confirming something roughly similar going on in their respective tracked regions across the U.S., UK, and Europe.
Yes, there was a drop off in sales over the holidays from the initial launch surge. As Joost van Dreunen, NYU Stern professor and author of SuperJoost Playlist explains, “The device is more expensive than its predecessors, for one, and went into the holiday season without a clear blockbuster title to incentivize audiences. Don’t get me wrong, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is well worth your time, but it lacks the cache held by Mario and Zelda titles. More so, everyone who was going to buy a Switch 2 at launch has had a chance to do so, especially since Nintendo had been stocking its new console for months prior to its release in anticipation of tariff-related volatility and potential supply chain issues.”
But as every single analyst I spoke to also said, this was extremely expected and normal, and not really an indicator of anything especially concerning. For instance, Circana’s annual report on the U.S. games market had the Nintendo Switch 2 as the best-selling console of the year in both unit and dollar sales. It sold 4.4 million units total for 2025 in the U.S., 94% higher than the Nintendo Switch 1 at the same point in its life cycle.
It is worth noting, of course, that the Nintendo Switch 1 launched in March in its release year, while the Switch 2 dropped in June. This means that the comparison point here, seven months into each console’s life cycle, includes the holiday period for the Switch 2, but not the original Switch. And it’s true that reporting suggests Switch 2 holiday sales underperformed Switch 1 holiday sales in some markets, especially the UK and parts of the U.S. So it’s possible in the coming months we see that difference shrink.
Or, maybe not! The Switch 2 has one heck of a lead, and there’s a good reason for it: supply. “Switch 2 sales [in 2025] were expected to be more front-loaded than other consoles historically due to the strong rate of supply early on,” says Mat Piscatella, senior director at Circana. “Which, of course, is how the Switch 2 has been able to set the record as the US market’s fastest selling console ever over the first 6 months in market. You can’t sell units that don’t exist, etc etc.”
Switches ‘Round the World
Additionally, the Switch 2’s holiday wasn’t on the slower side everywhere. In Asia, Niko Partners director of research and insights Daniel Ahmad says the Switch 2 had a good holiday. “In Japan, sales of the Switch 2 during the holiday period were in line with the Switch 1,” he says. “Nintendo’s expansion in Southeast Asia is also paying off, with an official launch in the region earlier this year helping drive sales growth. While there is no official release in China, demand for grey market imports is high.”
Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games, backs this up too. “In the case of the Japanese market in particular, the numbers are very clear: Switch 2 sold like hot cakes over the holidays.”
One reason for that is supply. The Switch 2’s initial sales success in the U.S. can be attributed partly to Nintendo ensuring there was an ample supply at launch, which also resulted in U.S. total sales being more heavily frontloaded than they would have otherwise. But the console has been difficult to come by in Japan, Toto says. That was true even over the holiday when supply improved, and he suspects the Japan sales would have been even higher if there had been enough Switch 2s to go around.
Piers Harding-Rolls, games industry analyst and researcher at Ampere Analysis, offered an in-depth take as to why the Switch 2 is in the position it’s in right now. For one, the market conditions are different than they were when the Switch 1 came out. Not only is there more stock and fewer massive gamers as the other analysts mentioned, but the Switch 2 is also a “known quantity.”
“When the original Switch launched it followed a failing Wii U generation – there was a lot of interest but hype and momentum built up in the run up to the holiday sales at the end of 2017,” Harding-Rolls says. “This time around at the Switch 2 launch demand was predictably high because of the success of the Switch. Following a record launch, it’s not surprising that Switch 2 sales have not been able to maintain the same massive sales lead on the original Switch. For the record, Switch 2 shipments in 2025 should outperform the original Switch in 2017 and over a shorter period of time.
“…Then there is the whole macroeconomic situation, less disposable income and higher priced hardware. This may be softening demand to an extent especially as lots of new games are still available on the original Switch.”
Put all together, it sounds like there’s a lot less cause for alarm(o) than some were making Switch 2 sales out to be.
The Switch in Twenty-Six
But what about the future?
Harding-Rolls continues: “I’m expecting Switch 2 exclusives to become more plentiful in 2026 so this will drive upgrades for those sitting on the fence. Overall, Switch 2 games look pretty strong in 2026 so I remain quite bullish on the performance of the platform this year. Longer-term I don’t expect Switch 2 to outperform the original Switch as there were special conditions – primarily the pandemic – which supercharged demand for Switch later in the cycle and elongated it to an extent.”
Everyone else agrees 2026 will be a good year for Switch 2, though with some asterisks related to the broader global market. Toto thinks for the current fiscal year ending March 30, Nintendo will be closer to 20 million units sold than their own forecast of 15 million, contingent on them building a more impressive game line-up. Ahmad predicts that the Switch 2 will sell more than 50 million units by the end of 2027, which would be a similar amount to the Switch 1 over the same time frame. He’s predicting a price hike, though, specifically a tariff-related one: “Tariffs were already squeezing margins last year, component costs are increasing rapidly, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo passes those costs on to consumers in one way or another.”
Van Dreunen doesn’t think we’ll see component-related price changes that would discourage sales, saying that Nintendo has already priced those in and that he expects sales in Japan especially to remain strong thanks to regional discounts and a heavy focus on the domestic market. “If it looks like Nintendo is selling fewer consoles in the US, you can look to the current administration for an explanation.”
Memory Goes Boom
But hardware pricing is a pretty big sticking point for James McWhirter, senior analyst at Omdia. He provided a fairly detailed breakdown of what he thinks is coming not just for the Switch 2, but for the entire console market, insofar as hardware pricing increases could eventually price consumers out of new purchases.
McWhirter thinks that the big story for all console hardware this year will be the effect that demand for AI infrastructure is going to have on pricing. In his estimation, about six months ago, RAM in a base PS5 accounted for at least a fifth of the bill of materials. But by the end of 2025, that cost will have risen by at least 50%.
“Suppliers obviously have the upper hand with any new negotiations, so it’s only a matter of time until Nintendo – and Sony and Microsoft – run through their inventory of memory and renegotiate at higher prices,” he says. “Any rise in the cost of console hardware will be passed on to consumers via multiple means: directly, or via a mix of increased software, services, peripherals pricing.
“But this comes at a tricky time for consoles – we are of course simultaneously seeing the spending power of middle-income households declining. This leaves Nintendo more exposed as they are keen on transitioning their Switch audience onto Switch 2 as quickly as possible, with no more cross-gen releases on the horizon.”
It’s not just hardware that’s impacted, he adds. He expects the “memory boom cycle” to impact Switch 2 software specifically soon, due to physical games shipping on NAND memory. “The rising cost of NAND memory places upward pressure on the cost of Switch 2 Game Cards. Switch 2, like its predecessor, is still a physical-first platform. When including bundled software, Omdia estimates 57% of Switch 2 games sold in 2025 were at retail.”
What about Game Key-Cards, you say? Sure, that would help, but they’re controversial…and may not be enough anyway.
“The upward pressure on NAND memory prices mean Game Key-Cards will be here to stay – even Nintendo has begun experimenting with them starting with March 2026’s Pokémon Pokopia. A publisher recently suggested Nintendo is introducing smaller capacity Game Cards, but the cost savings they provide may be eventually wiped out in future.
McWhirter expects that all of this will likely impact the “middle market” of gaming, people who purchase consoles sometime after their initial launch boom or general non-enthusiast gamers, may not be purchasing consoles in the same volume that they have in recent history. These are the people that pushed the Switch 1 to global sell-through of 151 million by the end of last year, but he’s not so sure they’re going to show up for the Switch 2, especially if it gets more expensive. He recalls the Nintendo 3DS, which had extremely frontloaded sales (17% of systems were sold in the first year on the market) compared to the Nintendo Switch 1 (9% in the first year). A similar scenario could happen again.
There are things Nintendo could do to stave that off. Switch 2 hardware bundles over the holiday providing a “soft” discount would help push sales. Regional discounts extended beyond just Japan would also probably work. He also posits a future docked-only Switch 2 Lite that would help reduce component costs and pass that savings on to consumers.
What does all this mean? It sounds like, as has been reported, 2025 was overall a fantastic launch year for the Switch 2, and that energy will likely continue for some time to come. But there are a number of hurdles the console needs to overcome in the next few years in order to maintain that success long-term. Some of them are obvious and manageable by Nintendo now: does it have a strong 2026 and 2027 game line-up, or not? But others, such as tariffs and component costs, are harder to predict and will require deft handling on the part of the hardware maker in order to drive the Switch 2 generation to a comparable level of success as its predecessors had.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
