Switch 2 Absolutely Destroys PS2's Launch Record in Japan

Nice! Congrats Nintendo 🙂.

That’s impressive.

Will be interesting to see if they can keep momentum considering its higher price than switch 1.

Switch 2 is off to a hot start everywhere. I seen they sold 3 million consoles in 24 hours. All stores are out of stock and it’s the biggest launch sales of a console in history. I would say that’s a solid start. I got mine and am loving it. Really like the new direction they took with Mario Kart World.

The less you offer, the more successful you become nowadays (same with Sony)

Even considering it’s a completely different era than PS2, it’s still impressive! Congrats

@Frmknst in what way are they offering less? I get it with Sony as they have offered less first party this gen but Nintendo are consistently releasing 6+ games per year.

@UltimateOtaku9 SW2 only has Mario Kart at launch, while PS5 had Demon Souls, Astro Playroom and Spider Man: MM.

"Of course, it’s expected that Sony is about to get absolutely trounced in its home region."

What, the USA? PS is about as Japanese as "mom's apple pie" these days

Someone needs to tell Nintendo that the console business is a rapidly dying dead end and releasing on every device with a full multiplatform push is the only way to make money in this economic climate as success is impossible to obtain any other way. Oh, wait…

@Oram77 Nintendo have never really swamped their machines with day one games. I think 3 is the most in their entire history.

I have zero interest in buying a Switch 2 myself.

Talking Worldwide sales, the high sales numbers are most likely only down to Nintendo having a high number of units available for launch - Im sure PS5 would have sold 3.5m at launch if they had the units.

However, Im not saying this as a negative to Nintendo - quite the opposite in fact.
Its great they launched with so many units available, something Sony should take note of for PS6 - no one likes to 'miss out' at launch, and Im sure the high number of units has helped keep scalpers at bay too. So, well played Nintendo.

I'm not that impressed by this. Like Sony keeps increasing the total sales of PS2 25 years later to try and keep it away from Switch it seems like Nintendo said, well we could launch the Switch 2 in March like we did the Switch, or, we could stockpile inventory until we have enough to break every gaming console launch record.

I mean they basically said as much.

"According to an earlier Nikkei report, Nintendo had planned to launch Switch 2 in late 2024, but “priority was given to ensure the initial inventory of the successor console and a line-up of software titles at the time of its launch” in an attempt to avoid widespread reselling."

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-says-its-making-preparations-for-switch-2-resellers/

Nice that it's selling well, but launch is launch. Wii was nearly impossible to get in the USA for 2 years. PS5 for a year in part due to COVID. I'm curious to see when Switch 2 finally aren't sold out. Then I'll applaud.

@Lowdefal I think one for a console launch is a pretty poor showing, I'm not hating on the SW2 (in case I get accussed of being a hater). I was trying to answer the question and guessing what the OP was talking about.

Amazing result no matter which way you swing it.

The only fly in the ointment for me is that there have been a tonne of big third party announcements in the last few days and S2 hasn't been mentioned once.

Possible that they will be dropped in a Nintendo direct though. They are pretty good at keeping those big announcements for those.

Never owned a switch my kids have they love them, I bought myself and my daughter a switch 2 at launch , its a really nice bit of kit , the launch games for me at least are a bit meh, I bought fast fusion which is superb , wipeout clone without the guns , got breath of the wild as well, not really played it much as I've been busy with tainted grail ,with not owning a switch the sales on the Nintendo store are a bit daunting, anyone got any suggestions , im a rpg guy mainly ,but I like anything if its got good gameplay.

@Medic_alert I think some of this is due to Nintendo being stingy with dev kits and a knock on effect of testing. Switch 2 is going to bring a big increase in quality of ports of older games but it may have the same problem as S1 with games currently in development. It may take more time for those devs to commit to ports until they can actually try them out

@Lowdefal yeah there may well be a load of stuff going on behind the scenes and I had heard rumours that dev kits were very late in coming.

Hopefully we get more of an indication soon of which devs are all on board.

MGS delta and Silent hill would be nice!

@Oram77 Tbf I think he means just on a usual basis yeah Nintendo is mainly advertising Mario Kart rn, but we have Donkey Kong coming next month, Drag X Drive coming this summer, new Hyrule Warriors coming this winter, Pokemon Legends ZA coming in October, Kirby Air Riders and Metroid Prime 4 still coming this year, the Switch 2 versions of Kirby & The Forgotten Land and Mario Party Jamboree which basically act like new DLC for those games, Splatoon Raiders which is probably coming soon, not to mention they'll have a Direct sometime soon that will announce even more games I'm sure

As a Switch owner that bought the first, then the OLED model upgrade, I'm incredibly confused about why the Switch 2 launch is going as well as it is.

Don't get me wrong, it is a DRAMATIC upgrade hardware wise going from ancient hardware that lagged behind the portable handheld competition barely running some various titles at 760p/30fps, all the way to 1440p/60fps ...

Still, the launch lineup was anemic, mostly made up of over priced third party titles. With general sentiment agreeing Mario Kart World's open world was a massive missed opportunity and somewhat of a let down. And all that power is let down by surprisingly bad battery life (I've seen reports of under 2 hours of play time) for something this large when even the OG switch could do 3 hours consistently in a smaller form factor.

I'll probably get the Switch 2 eventually once more first party titles release making the purchase worth it. I guess I'm just a little shocked why it's been selling so incredibly well at launch despite the obvious misses. Gotta applaud Nintendo I guess? Takes a LOT of quality consistency and decades-earned brand reputation to move units like this with such a light launch.

@Sarxion Most of the people buying the machine at launch won't be bothered by these things. You've also got 40million people who didn't buy Mario Kart 8 the first time but did on Switch and now a lot of them want to play the sequel.

The screen sounds pretty bad and don't get me started on game key cards but I am not representative of most of the market.

Switch is still hot property which is why the Switch 2 has opened as one. Part of the Wii U's issue aside from terrible reveal and questionable marketing was that the Wii was basically collecting dust in most peoples homes long before the Wii U was announced. they've dodged that Bullet Bill this time.

PS5 Slim still able to sell 14K unit despite being outnumbered by Switch 2 sales.
Impressive.

The power of Mario Kart/ having tons of stock on launch day.

@Dodoo I'm guessing Nintendo already thought about this. Japan has two different SKU of the Switch 2... A Japanese-only model that is almost $110 cheaper, and a multi-language model that is priced higher. So that will help sale out.

@Oram77 I guess it a strange trade off... The PS5 had those games... But then it basically went silent for the next 6 months till Ratchet and Clank came out. The Switch 2 will see Donkey kong, Pokemon Legends Z-A, Kirby Air Riders, Hyrule Warriors Age of imprisonment, and who know what else before the end of the year. Maybe the spin off Splatoon game? (I'm not counting Drag x Drive cause that look's stupid)

@Sarxion A few reasons. It is an upgrade. Some people have been complaining about the hardware for switch and how it is an upper ceiling for games. (while I still say switch can last comfortably until 2026 and i still stand by that, the improvements are noticeable even on non upgrade versions. ) That lends to the twenty plus launch games, many that wouldn’t come out on switch but are now possible on switch 2. The launch games have a wide spread genre wise so there is something for everyone and people have many reasons to jump into those games (Nintendo only gamers means it’s their first time access to many titles, Nintendo preferred gamers means they had either waited for releases or will double dip, I am in this camp. First time gamers means these are new games, after all people are still buying GTAV). Which leads to the line up in general, Switch has games in the pipeline until at least 2026, and Switch 2 is getting its new solo announcements. Which leads to the main launch game Mario Kart World (which is great btw) and Mario Kart is both an evergreen and a system seller on its own. Which leads to BC, the majority of the switch library is playable on switch 2 which means someone that is trying to decide what to buy will buy the system that is future ready while having access to a cheaper library (that is being still added to) if needed. Which leads to the new features of the system. Virtual Game cards, Gamecube NSO, Gamechat are all draws for different people. And I haven’t included the brand faithful or the buying for social gaming crowds. Each of those reasons alone would contribute to sales. All of them applying to the same system makes sales a likely sure thing.

People game and buy for different reasons. The only uniting factor is that they happen to be buying the same product. Everyone’s motivation and experience is different.

Surprised seeing the general contrarian sentiment to this seems to be, "well, they had the stock, so of course it sold well." Which is just...not how supply and demand works.

Nintendo knew their new console would have high demand, and, since they start generations on their time and the Switch was still selling really well, they had nothing pressuring them into launching ASAP. So they smartly built up their stock. This isn't some matter of fact thing, it was a conscious business decision by Nintendo.

You can say the PS5 would've sold at the same rate if not for stock issues. You can say the PS2 only sold so well because it was a cheap DVD player. All that's conjecture, though — barely constituting context. The context was Sony couldn't figure out their business during COVID fast enough to pump out PS5s, and Nintendo had the stock and demand to sell 3.5 million consoles in a few days.

@AverageGamer ah ok I didn’t know they had two SKU’s in Japan, interesting!

Welp looks like Nintendo will get away with greedy practices. Again. Get ready for 100 dollar games.

@AverageGamer just shows how much of a margin they are keeping on the switch 2. No way do some extra languages cost that much. They get away with anything.

Well done, Nintendo! 😄 I love my Switch 2 thus far. 😍

To add some context: Switch 2 costs less in Japan than abroad, where it has price parity with PlayStation 5

At least the ps5 outsold the switch 1

@kmtrain83 oh that's not really my worry. Engines are more and more scalable and the gap between the top hardware and the weaker stuff is in truth weaker than ever.

I was just hoping that we might start seeing releases coming day and date with the other machines and given the success of Switch this might start pretty much day 1.

I will have to be patient I guess.

It's Japan, they eat everything with Nintendo on it.

But it's weird that Sony got dunked for launched PS5 with five 1st party games and one of them was a very fun free tutorial for the console.

Meanwhile Nintendo got praise to high heaven for launching Switch2 with only three first party games and two of them are remastered, $10 paid tutorial, hiding chat feature behind paywall, a new $80 trend price tag, bad battery life, a new trend of physical copy contain only digital game, and a user agreement where Nintendo can brick Switch2 and you can't sue them.

Nice, good job Nintendo 👍👍

@kmtrain83 People are making excuses for Nintendo shenanigans. They always got a free pass.

I was hoping it would be a 3DS launch level failure, but oh well. I'm not buying in to $80-90 controllers and games or draconian EULA dirtbaggery. Just sticking w my OLED, Retroid, and PS5 for a while. I have a huge backlog anyway.
Really sucks but it is what it is.

@PuppetMaster literally have a Powerglove tattoo, got every Nintendo system at launch, and woke my kids up early for the Switch 2 Direct. I'm a huge fan. Not buying this and not making excuses. To me, they f*cked up big time and it will take a lot for me to go back. Not every fan is a sheep.

Wow, Cyberpunk not even on that list… I bought a copy!

gaming wasn't as mainstream back when the ps2 launched. gaming demographics have grown extensively over the past 10 years or so. secondly, there were ps2 shortages at launch which resulted in sony cutting 50% of its initial shipments globally. furthermore, social media and influencers did not exist back in 2000. easily, 50% of all switch 2 sales were purchased by influencers for work purposes if anything. the ps2 launch sales are still more impressive than switch 2's under the circumstances.

it's all downhill from here for switch 2. nintendo is going to have a hard time selling people on the switch 2 when so many families have perfectly good og switches with a plethora of games to play already. i'm not even going to get into the pricing concerns related to both, the hardware and software. expect nintendo to drop the price like they did with the 3ds if annual sales fail to meet expectations which appears to be the likely scenario.

@AverageGamer The Japan only Switch was only available at the My Nintendo Store, and Famitsu said it wasn't counted in these charts.

So this is just the retail available full price edition counted here.

@Porco "furthermore, social media and influencers did not exist back in 2000. easily, 50% of all switch 2 sales were purchased by influencers for work purposes if anything."

Everything in this paragraph makes me want to buy large amounts of napalm and a DeLorean, not necessarily in that order.

@Sarxion I think switch 2 has a lot of legitimate demand simply because it's been sooo long in the waiting. Everyone that was hyped by the Real Soon Now Switch Pro in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 finally got it. And there's just so many Switch owners and it's the first upgrade in ages, with a much Michigan upgraded docked experience particularly.

However. I'm also somewhat baffled. Switch is is the first Nintendo I haven't eagerly followed and pre-ordered like a kid on Christmas since the Wii. Switchmas, switch 1 launch was the most exciting thing in ages. This time I didn't even bother watching the whole reveal, didn't pre-order, didn't know when it was launching and simply didn't care at all. Nothing about it is especially compelling to me and what would have been compelling they ruined with their software business practices. I've barely paid attention to switch the second half of it's life because Nintendos software just seems formulaic to me starting around mid way. And the hardware is just a faster switch. To an extent I think a good chunk of demand right now is simply FOMO based on past Nintendo launches, the PS5 XSX launch nightmare, and the NV50 launch people are used to if they don't buy it now it'll either be impossible or go up in price. Plus the bragging rights of simply having the hot new thing which seems to be a more important thing then ever to more people.

People are losing their minds at being able to play a 2017 open world game at 60fps for the low low price of $530. I was going to say this is worthy on Nvidia. Then I remembered it is Nvidia.

It will be interesting to see if the momentum continues and it's legit big demand or if you'll start seeing a ton up for sale from people that bought them with the intent to scalp without realizing there was sufficient supply unlike any hardware launch in the past 5 years. Even PSVR2 had a sellout preorder.