One third-party Nintendo Switch 2 game developer told The Game Business that sales numbers were “below our lowest estimates,” highlighting the lukewarm performance of third-party launch titles in the first two weeks of the Switch 2’s lifespan.
The Nintendo Switch 2 launch lineup consisted of a healthy number of third-party titles, including Konami’s Survival Kids, Square Enix’s Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster, CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, and more. According to data from Circana, cited by The Game Business, 81% of physical Nintendo Switch 2 game sales were for first-party titles, such as Mario Kart World and the Switch 2 Editions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. NielsenIQ reports Cyberpunk 2077 has been the best-selling third-party game on Switch 2 so far, while Circana’s data reveals Sega is the third-biggest Switch 2 game publisher.
Circana executive director Mat Piscatella posted on Bluesky that “Third party unit share of Switch 2 physical software during week 1 reached just shy of 40%,” which is almost double what third-party games did at the launch of the Switch 1. The Game Business did point out that improvement over the performance of third-party games on the original Switch, but also explains that “it’s hard to describe these statistics as positive.” That’s understandable, considering the Switch 2 has had one of the most successful console launches of all time, yet an anonymous publisher is claiming that even its lowest estimates overestimated how well third-party games would do on Switch 2.
The release of this information has caused discussions over the negative impact of Game-Key Cards, which are physical game cartridges that don’t contain a game’s full data and still require a download. Kelsey Lewin, owner of Seattle game retailer Pink Gorilla Games, said on Bluesky that Game-Key Card sales have flagged. “We had very low expectations carrying these in-store but can anecdotally confirm: no one is buying these,” Lewin wrote
Niko Partners director of research and insights Daniel Ahmad is less bullish on the idea that Game-Key Cards had a negative impact on third-party Switch 2 sales. “I hate to break it to people, but the ‘I refuse to buy a game for my Nintendo Switch 2 if the physical version is not on the cart’ crowd are both a minority today and will be an even smaller minority in five years,” he posted on X.
While the third-party numbers on Switch 2 aren’t very promising thus far, we’ll see how these games perform in the coming months and years as more brand-new games come to the platform.
