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Forums - Sales - Nintendo has published 55 games on Switch that have sold at least 1 million units

javi741 on 05 September 2022
zorg1000 said:
theRepublic said:

Yeah, there is an interesting comparison to be made with Splatoon.  Both Mario Maker and Splatoon were brand new series starting on the Wii U.  Both got a Switch sequel.  Both started with free online play in the first game, and both required payed online to access all features in the sequels.  Obviously they are very different games, but it is interesting that they have so many similarities.  To the numbers:

Mario Maker - 4.02 million on Wii U, 7th place on the console
Splatoon - 4.95 million on Wii U, 6th place on the console

Mario Maker 2 - 7.89 million on Switch, 17th place on the console
Splatoon 2 - 13.3 million on Switch, 12th place on the console

That is a 96.3% increase for Mario Maker, and a 168.7% increase for Splatoon.  Not bad for Mario Maker 2, but Splatoon had really impressive growth.

Someone previously mentioned New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe only launching 6 months before Mario Maker 2, and it is certainly possible that ate some sales.  Those games were about 3 years apart on the Wii U.  I'm just kind of curious now, so let's look at more numbers.

New Super Mario Bros U - 5.82 million on Wii U, 3rd place
New Super Luigi U - 3.07 million on Wii U, 8th place
New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe - 13.31 million on Switch, 11th place
This is a 128.7% increase if we go from base NSMBU to the Deluxe version.

Let's look at some other games that are roughly comparable.  Some ports, some sequels.

Super Mario 3D World - 5.88 million on Wii U, 2nd place
Super Mario 3D World + Bower's Fury - 9.43 million on Switch, 15th place
This is a 60.4% increase.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze - 2.02 million on Wii U, 11th place
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze - 4.12 million on Switch, 25th place
This is a 104% increase.

Yoshi's Woolly World - 1.57 million on Wii U, 14th place
Yoshi's Crafted World - 3.01 million on Switch, 35th place
91.7% increase

Pikmin 3 - 1.27 million on Wii U, 17th place
Pikmin 3 Deluxe - 2.23 million on Switch, 41st place
75.6% increase

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker - 1.37 million on Wii U, 16th place
Captain Toad Treasure Tracker - 2.13 million on Switch, 42nd place
55.5% increase

Then there are these outliers.

Smash - 5.38 million on Wii U, 4th place
Smash - 28.82 million on Switch, 3rd place
435.7% increase

Kart - 8.46 million on Wii U, 1st place
Kart - 46.82 million on Switch, 1st place
453.4% increase

Nice breakdown, so based on this it did similar to other Wii U sequels/updated ports (excluding Smash/Kart)

range: 55.5-168.7

average-97.6

Mario Maker-96.3

Tbh however, while the sales increase for Mario Maker seems to be around average for between the Wii U & Switch version. We have to keep in mind that most of the games listed were ports of Wii U games rather than a sequel or new game. If we were to compare Mario Maker's sales increase to Wii U sequels on Switch Mario Maker 2 would get blown out the water which shows that the game should've done better when seeing how other Wii U sequels done on Switch. Of course we saw Mario Kart & Smash have huge sales increases,

Zelda as well when comparing it to previous entries with Zelda BOTW having a huge 639% increase compared to Skyward Sword.

Mario Odyssey had a 306% increase over 3D World.

Super Mario Party had a 700% increase over Mario Party 10.

Splatoon 2 had a 169% increase over Splatoon 1.

Luigi's Mansion 3 had a 77% increase over Dark Moon, which is one of the few outliers where a Wii U/3DS sequel had a smaller sales increase than Mario Maker 2. But its a bit unfair to use this example cause Luigi's mansion 3 is a sequel to a 3DS game, & the 3DS had a much bigger install base than the Wii U.

Nintendo Switch Sports just released and we already know that it blew Wii Sports Club out the water since Wii Sports Club didn't even crack 1 Million. Taking a conservative 500k sales approach for Wii Sports Club, Switch Sports would already have a 870% increase over Wii Sports Club.

Kirby Forgotten Land so far has a 72% increase over Kirby Triple Deluxe, but Kirby Forgotten land just came out & was pretty much a sequel to a 3DS game since Wii U didn't really have a mainline Kirby(I dont consider Kirby & Rainbow Curse to be mainline). So likely we will see a sales increase higher than MM2 despite being disadvantaged as being a 3DS sequel.

Mario Tennis Aces had a huge 693% increase over the estimated sales of Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, which confirmed sold below 1 Million, vgchartz estimated around 0.54M which seems like thatll be around the ballpark in sales.

Age of Calamity had a 400% sales increase over Hyrule Warriors on Wii U.

Paper Mario Origami King had a 284% sales increase over Paper Mario Color Splash. 

Even Animal Crossing New Horizons had a 300% increase over Animal Crossing New Leaf on 3DS.

Xenoblade 2 had a 190% increase over Xenoblade Chronicles X.

So if we were to take the average sales increase percentage of Wii U Only Sequels On Switch, it'll be at: 436%

If we were to include 3DS sequels, it'll be at: 379%

Mario Maker 2's Sales Increase Over Mario Maker 1 Is: 96%

So relative to other Wii U/3DS Sequels On Switch, Mario Maker 2 definitely falls short when it comes to sales as it didn't see anywhere near the same sales increase as other sequels did. Comparing Mario Maker 2's sales to ports isn't really a fair comparison.