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Believe it or not, another year is about to pass us. 2023 is right around the corner, and in terms of Switch games, it has a lot to live up to. There were plenty of great games on Switch in 2022, with big-name first party titles and stellar third party hits. Now it’s time to see what resonated most with Switch owners.

Nintendo has crunched the numbers on the top 30 most downloaded Switch eShop titles in Japan for 2022, and the list is filled with names you’d expect and some great surprises. See how many you can guess before you check out the list below!

  1. Splatoon 3 (Nintendo) [09.9.2022] {6 500 Yen}
  2. Pokémon Legends: Arceus (The Pokémon Company) [28.1.2022] {6 578 Yen}
  3. Pokémon Violet (The Pokémon Company) [18.11.2022] {6 500 Yen}
  4. Pokémon Scarlet (The Pokémon Company) [18.11.2022] {6 500 Yen}
  5. Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom) [26.3.2021] {7 990 Yen}
  6. Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Nintendo) [25.3.2022] {6 500 Yen}
  7. Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo) [29.4.2022] {4 300 Yen}
  8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo) [28.4.2017] {6 578 Yen}
  9. Overcooked! 2 (Team17) [07.8.2018] {2 750 Yen}
  10. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Nintendo) [29.7.2022] {8 700 Yen}
  11. Kirby’s Dream Buffet (Nintendo) [17.8.2022] {1 500 Yen}
  12. Among Us (Innersloth) [16.12.2020] {520 Yen}
  13. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo) [07.12.2018] {7 920 Yen}
  14. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo) [20.3.2020] {6 578 Yen}
  15. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo) [03.3.2017] {7 678 Yen}
  16. Minecraft (Microsoft Japan) [21.6.2018] {3 960 Yen}
  17. Human: Fall Flat (Teyon Japan) [28.12.2017] {1 530 Yen}
  18. Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (Nintendo) [05.6.2020] {4 378 Yen}
  19. Mario Party Superstars (Nintendo) [29.10.2021] {6 500 Yen}
  20. Mon-Yu (Experience) [15.7.2021] {5 480 Yen}
  21. eBaseball Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2022 (Konami) [21.4.2022] {8 250 Yen}
  22. Futari de! Nyanko Dai Senso (Ponos) [20.12.2018] {499 Yen}
  23. INSIDE (Playdead) [28.6.2018] {1 980 Yen}
  24. Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban (Konami) [19.11.2020] {6 930 Yen}
  25. Dragon Quest X: Mezameshi Itsutsu no Shuzoku Offline (Square-Enix) [15.9.2022] {8 580 Yen}
  26. Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation (Square-Enix) [27.9.2019]
  27. Resident Evil 6 (Capcom) [31.10.2019] {3 300 Yen}
  28. Splatoon 2 (Nintendo) [21.7.2021] {6 578 Yen}
  29. Unravel Two (Electronic Arts) [22.3.2019] {3 024 Yen}
  30. Undertale (8-4) [15.9.2018] {1 620 Yen}
[P-N]

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Comments (7)

ninjablaze

1y ago

Japanese gaming prices were always interesting to me. As much as I love XBC3, i honestly don't know if i'd pay a 25% higher MSRP markup for it, i guess that'd be about $75 before tax. and DQXOffline is the same "premium" price over there, and that's not even a "new" game.


lionk

1y ago

Yes time flies when your having fun! ^-^

Regarding Nintendo for me (I never Switched) it is still on Wii U and 3DS. This week finally I managed to finish Shovel Knight and watch the credits. This year on Wii U we mostly played Super Mario 3D World, Rayman Legends and MK8. I got a lot further into Super Metroid and played quite some Pokemon Crystal as well. On PS2 I played quite some Tomb Raider Anniversary and managed to finish FFX.

With a new Zelda game coming up for Switch it might be tempting to switch consoles after all. But only if I feel it is a great game from the start into the mids and especially the ending. Oh and with all the respect, I will not buy into its reviews. They will probably be all very much hyped again. I feel reviews for games like these might only be thorough about maybe a year after release. So I will probably not take seriously one of the (probably many) -I'm the one of the first who played this cool new game- reviews.

Whoops I got of topic again.. I guess I didn't do one good thing for the eShop games in this list haha

Edited 2 times

conangiga

1y ago

@lionk

I also can't take reviews serious anymore. The reviewers rush through the game (if they even finish it at all) and write their review based on a fragment of the actual game.


sligeach_eire

1y ago

Even in the download chart Nintendo dominate, they make up half the chart. Physical games make up a lot their sales, whereas a good chunk of Indie games are download only, plus they're far cheaper, so you'd expect them to feature more prominently here. In fairness, about half of the remaining half are those aforementioned games. Still, you'd think they would be higher. It's a shame to see a cloud game in there, even if it is near the bottom of the list.


kuribo

1y ago

With digital sales overtaking physical sales, in general, this is representative in this list.


mjhopkins81

1y ago

It should be kind of troubling that 20 titles out of 30 on this list were released PRIOR to 2022.

Several titles were released prior to 2020.

That's...kind of a bad sign.


Is it? Good games don’t have to stop selling just because the calendar ticks over to a new year.