Nintendo likely isn’t thrilled with this result, but according to The Game Business, Switch 2’s Christmas sales were down 35% in the US compared to the Switch 1’s launch. We already knew that last November was the worst month for console sales in 30 years of Circana data, but it seems the holiday season wasn’t enough to get people buying Nintendo’s latest hardware. Either the price was too high or there simply weren’t enough games to justify getting new hardware.
The slumping sales weren’t limited to the US, however. As The Game Business reports, UK sales were similarly down over the same period from the Switch 1. According to the outlet, Nintendo Switch 2 sales for the last eight weeks of 2025 were 16% lower than the original console in the similar time frame. In a weird twist, combining current sales of Switch 1 and 2 together does put overall Nintendo hardware sales up 7%, maybe signaling that Nintendo needs to rethink the console’s price point.
What’s astounding is that sales in France were lower than expected. As The Game Business states, France has always been Nintendo’s strongest market in Europe, but sales in 2025 were “over 30%” lower than what Switch 1 managed during its first year. One thing to remember is that the Switch 1 was on sale for a much longer period in its first year, but it seems the explosive first month sales of the Switch 2 did not have the momentum to carry it through the holiday.
An unnamed senior Nintendo employee told the outlet that the “complicated economic landscape” mixed with higher price points and “the absence of a major western game” were likely reasons for the console underperforming in the west. As a reminder, the Switch 1 received not only The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as a launch game, but had Super Mario Odyssey to cap off the year in late November 2017.
It’s not all gloom and doom for the Switch 2. In Japan, the console performed better than other regions by a decent margin. No one has access to sales data from the last two weeks of 2025 in Japan yet, but during the period beginning November 1st to December 21st, the console moved 1.4 million units in the region. The Switch 1 during its launch year in the same time frame shifted under one million, which maybe points to the cheaper “Japanese-only” Switch 2 being the right move. The Game Business also points to Kirby Air Riders being a bigger deal in Japan, where Kirby is typically a stronger performer.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
