The Switch 2 has had a pretty momentous launch.
The Switch 2 has managed to break records by selling over 3.5 million units globally in its first four days on sale.
Despite the expectations that the increased price point of the console and its games would harm sales, it seems the opposite is now true.
According to Nintendo, the Switch 2 has been their fastest-selling console in the history of the company, as it amassed over 3.5 million sales in its first four days.
That exceeds what the original Switch managed, and that went on to be a huge success, almost selling as much as the PlayStation 2 in its lifetime.
Considering how Zelda: Breath of the Wild made the original Switch fly off shop shelves back in 2017, it now seems that Mario Kart World has indeed done what many suspected.
In that, while Breath of the Wild was a huge seller for the first Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe managed to sell more than double that.
With that in mind, it makes sense that you would make an open-world Mario Kart game to kick-start your next console.
I’ve had a lot of fun with Mario Kart World, and you can read my review if you are at all curious about the game, but it’s clear now that this combination at launch for the Switch 2 has been very successful.
As for how the Switch 2 has done in Japan, it’s a bit different compared to the first Switch launch. Mainly because many bought the console online from Nintendo’s site directly, which meant that there has been steady stock in most shops here as a result.
The other interesting thing is that the Japanese Switch 2 is sort of region locked to Japan, as it only supports Japanese language games. This is to hamper efforts from scalpers who bought the old multi-region Switch and sold it in places like China for a huge markup.
You can buy a multi-region Switch 2 in Japan, but only from Nintendo’s official site, which is what I did, and that seems to have stopped the scalpers in their tracks, at least for now.
The flip side to all this is that the Japanese version of the Switch 2 has subsequently been more available, and that has no doubt helped its sales here.
The launch line-up of games for the Switch 2 has also been varied and strong, so it will be interesting to see how it performs over the next few months, once other big releases land on the system.
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