Here Are Nintendo Switch's Best-Selling First-Party Games, Ranked

@Xristophoros: Hi Χριστόφορε! Well it is normal with demanding titles like Botw and with casual titles like MK8 for something like this to happen. All the kids that I know (and since I am working on a school I know many) who own a switch (by the way, many of them--the hottest Christmas gift by far) have MK8 and only one(!) has Botw and the poor one told me if I can go to his house and pass one of the divine beasts cause he stuck. It is a very hard game for young kids. On the other hand, kids can be familiarize themselves in MK8 in 10 minutes.

@Xristophoros: Was going to say the same. The Kart fan base is more prevalent that that of Zelda apparently.

@doctor_mg: how do you know that? do you have insider information as to what nintendo's projections were or what the budget was or what the required sales were to turn a profit on the title? 1m units really isn't much at all these days for a AAA game.

@doctor_mg:

I hope the sales are good to warrant a Xeno X port for switch or better yet a sequel!

@doctor_mg: wow it didnt, congrats.

@kaidou069: Stars BF2 sold to an install base of almost 100 million PS4 and XboxOne and that’s not even including PC. Mario Odyssey sold to an install base of almost 13 million. So yes, Mario was wanted way more than BF2.

@kaidou069: Battlefront released on multiple platforms and each of those multiple platforms has more units sold than the switch so of course the switch needs to hit a much smaller sales milestone to be considered successful.

@kaidou069: That title's advertising budget alone probably eclipses Mario's development costs, and there is also all the effort they put into creating an online gambling system. That shit's gotta cost money too...

@videogameninja: You can't even compare Botw with odyssey (I prefer by far Botw personally). Both games are epic BUT of course Mario would sell more! It is for ages 5+ (I have a nephew who plays it and he is 5yo) while even 10yo kids have serious issues playing Zelda which is far more complicated. I have a student (I am a teacher) who is 10 and is begging me to go and help him with his first(!) divine beast. Don't get me wrong Odyssey is very complicated for kids 5-7 as well but I think for 8+ is perfect while Zelda is for 12+. This is a huge gap if you think the people who buy Nintendo products. The majority is young kids. Again, I am not saying that Nintendo consoles are for kids but during Christmas (I have this info from my class again) switch was the No 1 item in Santa's list here in US. Out of 11 kids (5-10yo) that I know that they own a switch, 11 of them have Mario, 10 of them Mario Kart and 1(!) Zelda. Also, don't forget about girls. Girls will buy for sure Mario but not Zelda. The whole battle style and items it is more about boys while Mario is universal, hence bigger success. For gamers though, Zelda is by far superior in every aspect. That's why after all these arguments that I set here Zelda is relatively close to Mario.

See for example Xenoblade 2, awesome game, only 1.1 m sales. Logical. You have to be a gamer to buy it and invest 200+(!!!) hours on it. Cheers!

@videogameninja: Zelda is not for everyone and some people are intimidated by this kind of games but Mario is a game that anybody plays so ...it makes sense that mario would be #1