Nintendo's Dominance in Japan Continued in 2025!

General news News Nintendo Nintendo News 01/20/2026

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This marks the 21st consecutive year that Nintendo has dominated the Japanese gaming market, despite Sony’s attempts to compete.

In 2025, the Nintendo Switch 2 contributed nearly 40% to the growth of the Japanese gaming market, extending the company’s dominance on the Japanese sales charts for more than two decades. According to annual sales data published by Famitsu, the Switch 2 sold 3.78 million units in 2025, making it Japan’s fastest-selling console and accounting for more than half of all home consoles sold during the year. Nintendo games dominated the list of best-selling physical games for the 21^(st) consecutive year, with Switch and Switch 2 games occupying nine of the top 10 spots and likely 18 of the top 20.

Mario Kart World sold 2.66 million physical copies on the Switch 2, making it the third best-selling console game of the year in Japan, behind only Pokémon Scarlet & Violet and Splatoon 3, both of which were released in 2022. Last year, Mario Party Jamboree was the best-selling game in Japan, with 954,261 copies sold. Consequently, the Japanese domestic game market is estimated to have grown from 301.32 billion yen to 418.13 billion yen from 2024 to 2025. Much of this growth comes from hardware sales, which rose from 189.4 billion yen to 282.6 billion yen.

Last year, the best-selling gaming console in Japan was the Nintendo Switch 2, with 3,784,067 units sold. It was followed by the Nintendo Switch (1,520,384 units sold), the PlayStation 5 (879,204 units sold), the Xbox Series (31,226 units sold), and the PlayStation 4 (1,087 units sold). Nintendo has sold the best-selling gaming hardware in Japan every year for the past two decades, with the exception of one year when the PSP was the leading platform. The company’s successful consoles include the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, and now the Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo’s closest competitor, the PlayStation 5, has experienced a two-year decline in sales. In 2025, PS5 sales dropped by 60%, despite the release of a new, more affordable model. The PS5 sold 1.4 million units in 2024, significantly less than the 2.6 million units sold in 2023 when console availability increased after supply chain issues caused by the pandemic. Last year, Sony raised the price of the PlayStation 5 in Japan by 20%.

The following are Japan’s best-selling games in 2025 (single-platform versions in the in-store/physical format only; from 11th place onwards, the Game Data Library’s weekly sales archive suggests the following additional rankings, but those marked with ~ are only estimates):

1. Mario Kart World (Switch 2) – 2668381
2. Pokémon Legends Z-A (Switch) – 1529823
3. Pokémon Legends Z-A (Switch 2) – 1004154
4. Monster Hunter Wilds (PS5) – 838319
5. Super Mario Party Jamboree (Switch) – 498397
6. Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2) – 435206
7. Kirby Air Riders (Switch 2) – 424837
8. Minecraft (Switch) – 346606
9. Mario Kart 7 Deluxe (Switch) – 342866
10. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake (Switch) – 316439
11. Animal Crossing New Horizons (Switch) – 288683
12. Donkey Kong Country Returns HD (Switch) – 277204
13. Momotaro Dentetsu 2 (Switch) ~233000
14. Tamagotchi Plaza (Switch) – ~222931
15. Ghost of Yotei (PS5) – 199870
16. Momotaro Dentetsu 2 (Switch 2) – ~190000
17. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Switch) – ~179237
18. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (Switch 2) – ~147000
19. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake (Switch 2) – ~135000
20. Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Switch) – ~134000