Star Fox Tops Japan’s Switch 2 Charts as Tomodachi Life Holds Steady at No. 2
Star Fox has retaken pole position in Japan. Famitsu’s estimated retail data for the week of June 22–28, 2026 shows the Nintendo Switch 2 remake opening at 41,680 physical copies, enough to top the software chart in its very first tracking week. Famitsu has published its estimated physical game software data for Japan for the week of June 22, 2026 to June 28, 2026, with Star Fox for Switch 2 the highest selling game and new release of the week, opening at 41,680 retail copies sold.
The debut pushed Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream out of the top spot for the first time in weeks. Fox’s latest adventure barrel-rolled to the top spot in its debut week, nabbing over 41,000 sales, meaning Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has taken an unusual break from pole position and now finds itself in second place. The life-sim sequel still moved a healthy 28,543 units in the same window, according to Famitsu’s figures relayed by VGChartz, with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream in second place with sales of 28,543 units, Powerful Pro Baseball 2026-2027 coming in third place with sales of 16,950, and pushing its Japanese lifetime total past 1.4 million copies.
Star Fox’s Opening Week Beats Recent Series Entries
For a franchise that has struggled to find a consistent release rhythm since the Nintendo 64 era, 41,680 units is a solid, if not spectacular, comeback. Community sales trackers cited on the Famiboards forum note that prior entries opened lower in recent generations, with Star Fox Zero opening at 8,175 units, the Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Guard double pack at 17,063, and Star Fox 64 3D at 36,858 — meaning this Switch 2 revival has already outsold most of its immediate predecessors in first-week physical sales alone, and that’s before digital purchases and overseas markets are counted.
Trade outlet Punch Jump, tracking the same Famitsu data, confirmed the release date and pricing details behind the launch. Star Fox is a space flight combat title based on Star Fox 64, including alternative routes, new missions and a new 4v4 multiplayer Battle Mode, a new graphics engine, new cinematic cutscenes and mission briefings, and Joy-Con 2 Mouse Controls, with the title selling at $59.99 in the US. The remake released physically in Japan on June 25, 2026, meaning the Famitsu window captured only a partial launch week.
Switch 2 Hardware Still Leads Despite a Recent Price Rise
On the console side, Nintendo’s newer machine kept its comfortable lead over rivals even as overall unit counts softened. Switch 2 sold 24,879 units in the week, the PlayStation 5 family sold 9,896 units, the Switch family sold 7,068 units, and the Xbox Series family sold 361 units. Nintendo Life’s chart analysis pointed to a recent regional price adjustment as one likely factor behind the softer week-on-week hardware figures. The hardware charts are much the same as found the previous week, with Switch 2 still leading by some margin despite the recent price increase in Japan, though rising costs mean that sales are down across the board, with over half the chart sitting in the hundreds and below.
Even with the dip, Switch 2 comfortably outsold every other platform combined that week, underlining just how dominant Nintendo’s newest hardware remains in its home market roughly a year into its life cycle.
Konami’s Baseball Series and Pokémon Pokopia Round Out the Top Five
Behind Star Fox and Tomodachi Life, Konami’s annual sports release and a pair of established Nintendo Switch 2 titles filled out the rest of the top five. Powerful Pro Baseball 2026-2027 sold 16,950 copies for a total of 146,335, eFootball Kick-Off! added 6,483 units for 41,508 lifetime, and Pokemon Pokopia moved 5,870 copies bringing its cumulative total to 1,069,925.
Mario Kart World continued its remarkably long tail on the chart, sitting in sixth place with sales of 4,521 units and a cumulative haul that VGChartz’s Famitsu breakdown lists in the millions. Two new physical-only Japanese releases, Medabots Card Robattle RB and Blackish House: sideZ Retour, cracked the top ten in their debut weeks, while The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales sat in ninth place with 4,077 units and Minecraft rounded out the top ten with 3,353 units.
What Star Fox’s Result Signals for the Franchise
The chart-topping debut arrives after years of uncertainty over whether Nintendo would return to the Star Fox series at all, and community reaction in Japan has been cautiously positive rather than euphoric. Nintendo Life’s readers pointed out that the shooter genre has never been a huge seller domestically, with one comment on the outlet’s coverage noting that “shmups in general are extremely niche, so seeing Star Fox hit 1/3rd of DK’s sales actually could be pretty good.”
For Nintendo, the figures matter less as a standalone benchmark and more as evidence that a genre revival can still move real units on Switch 2 hardware, ahead of a busier back half of 2026 for first-party releases. Star Fox is now available worldwide on Nintendo Switch 2, meaning fans across Australia and New Zealand can already pick up the remake through the Nintendo eShop or at retail, with regional pricing set independently by Nintendo’s local storefronts.
Read also: Xenoblade Chronicles Still Ranks Among Nintendo’s Best 15 Years Later
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