It’s Incredible How Good of a Year Nintendo Has Had

2025 was always going to be an important year for Nintendo. After all, launching a new console is a big deal, especially when that console is looking to follow up on the incredibly successful Switch. Thankfully for Nintendo and its fans, the company has absolutely knocked 2025 out of the park, giving fans a hot new console, several massive games, and an ever-growing online service. It might not end up being quite as good as the first Switch’s launch year in 2017, but it’s awfully close to Nintendo’s best year ever.

The Switch 2 Launch and Great Games Have Made This a Year to Remember

On its own, the Switch 2 would be enough of a success story to qualify as one of Nintendo’s best years in recent memory. The system has become Nintendo’s fastest-selling console of all time, and it’s not really close. The original Switch sold 2.74 million units in a month. The Switch 2 cleared that number in less than four days, hitting 3.5 million units in what amounts to a long weekend.

That’s an incredible achievement. By the end of the year, it should pass the Wii U in total lifetime sales, potentially even getting close to the GameCube, depending on how well the holiday season goes for Nintendo. With fewer than 12 months under its belt, those are remarkable numbers. The Wii U might be Nintendo’s worst-performing console, but pushing past it in about six months is astounding.

Of course, people wouldn’t be buying the console in droves if there weren’t great games to play, and Nintendo has been doing very well on that front. The year started with Mario Kart World, which gave Switch 2 fans a brand-new way to play Mario Kart. The new, open-world map has been hit-or-miss with veteran fans, but the on-track racing is as good as it’s ever been.

Soon after, players were treated to what might be the best Donkey Kong game ever made: Donkey Kong Bananza. The action platformer lets players loose in a huge, fully destructible world. Breaking through the world to solve Bananza‘s challenges is some of the most fun you can have in 2025. It’s from the team that brought Super Mario Odyssey to the original Switch, and you can immediately tell, thanks to the best-in-class polish and imaginative gameplay.

Nintendo followed that up with Pokémon Legends: Z-A. The sequel to Pokémon X and Y is a solid battler, but some players felt the exploration and side content were a little shallow. Still, it’s a solid Pokémon game, which is always going to do big numbers for Nintendo. And on top of all the great first-party output, games like Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong prove that the Switch family remains one of the best places for indie games. That said, Nintendo might’ve saved its best for last.

Nintendo Could Finish 2025 in Style

While Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Pokémon Legends: Z-A are great games, none of them have quite the fervor of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Metroid Prime fans have been waiting more than a decade for the next mainline game in the series. Sure, there was the Federation Force spin-off, and Metroid Dread was an impressive throwback to the franchise’s roots, but Prime fans didn’t hear a peep from Nintendo until 2017.

There, it was revealed that Metroid Prime 4 was officially in the works. Since then, the game has changed quite a bit, with Retro Studios taking back over development after it was originally reported that Bandai Namco Studios was leading development. Now, eight years after that first announcement, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is finally going to launch on December 4th, 2025.

Heading into that release date, no mainline Metroid Prime game has had below a 90 on Metacritic. That doesn’t mean Metroid Prime 4 is a guaranteed hit, but players are understandably hyped about the impending launch. If it meets those expectations (or even gets close), Nintendo is going to move even more Switch 2 units this holiday than expected. It has a real chance to own December for Nintendo, dominating hearts and minds as fans are finalizing their holiday wishlist.

If all that weren’t enough, Nintendo Switch Online is slowly creeping toward passing Xbox Game Pass in total subscribers. As of the last reporting, NSO sits at right around 34 million subs, while Game Pass was hovering around 35 million. If players continue to pour in after picking up a Switch 2, NSO might soon overtake Game Pass, though it’s worth noting that an NSO membership is much cheaper than Game Pass.

No matter how you slice it, Nintendo is having a banner 2025, and 2026 might be just as good on the games front. Players have games like Mario Tennis Fever, Splatoon Raiders, The Duskbloods, and much more on the way. Simply put, the Switch 2 is a roaring success, and Nintendo is well-positioned to capitalize with dozens of great games.

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