Donkey Kong Bonanza launches at No.1 in the UK chart (physical sales) . Its launch is 3x bigger than the launch of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on Switch. But it is less than half of Super Mario Odyssey’s
by Turbostrider27
Nintendo Switch
34 Comments
Switch also had a larger install base when odyssey came out, so this is not surprising.
Makes sense.
UK is a weird market for Nintendo but if this aligns with global sales, I think this is a good showing. Mario Odyssey is among the best selling games of all time. DK was never going to rival it, and also the Switch 2 has only been out for less than 2 months. This is certainly a big jump for the DK franchise
As someone who still is on regular switch. Is tropical freeze worth playing?
It being a smaller launch than Odyssey makes sense, since Bananza released only 5 weeks into the console’s life – by comparison, the OG Switch had been out for almost 8 months by the time Odyssey came out! Not to mention the fact that Mario tends to sell better just because of how well-loved the IP is regardless of quality (Tropical Freeze is objectively a much better game than New Super Mario Bros U, but it still sold less than half of SMBU’s 18-million units in spite of this).
Almost like bringing a character back from the dead after 11 years is hard
Come on Chris, you’re a games journalist at least get the name of the game right!!
It’s Bananza not Bonanza!
Even if it lifetime sells half than Odyssey that’s 15 million copies (Odyssey sold 30m) at $70. My guess is that DK will end up at 20m will which would be a great number for the franchise.
Is it really fair to compare it to the launch of a port that was originally released 4 years prior on the Wii U?
There were more switch’s out by the time Mario Odyssey came out too. DK is an ever green title anyway. Will sell well for years
It’s my favourite game so far though I guess we’ve only got two on the console. It’s incredibly fun just childlike wonder and joy. Very much a clear successor Mario Odyssey. You can really feel that it’s the same people who made it. It’s a breath of fresh air in an era where so many games are just hyper realistic attempts to make an immersive open world. The game also has performance issues, but they are a lot less than what I would expect from a game like this. The fully destructible environment usually screams performance issues but they’ve handled it well enough. The real big performance drops are when there’s a lot of gold on the ground and you pick it up with the clap or when you’re picking up a banana for some reason it feels like the latter should really be a ready-made animation that shouldn’t be that heavy but I guess there are a lot of particles flying around.
It’s truly a stellar game that I want everyone to play. That being said it has a weird pricing structure. It costs €80 after tax in my local equivalent currency which is quite steep. Though the switch 2 cost like €700 here too so pricing is kind of out of whack in my region.
One thing that disappoints me with the more expensive games is that it’s going to make it a lot harder to get people to play these new games outside of titles that I know people will want to buy like a new animal Crossing or a new Pokémon. I have a feeling that it’s going to be hard to on board new players. Oddly enough not on the console but onto games.
Not to be too shady to the IP but: I’m pretty sure beating the sales record of a 21st century Donkey Kong Country isn’t that hard of an achievement.
Considering:
– The Switch 2 has a smaller install base
– Mario Odyssey was £50, this is £65
– The digital version is £6 cheaper than the physical version, so it will be a much higher fraction of sales (and digital sales aren’t counted in these charts)
– It’s DK, not Mario
That seems like a pretty good start
There’s many factors to make the Mario Odyssey comparison pointless.
More people may also be buying digital as opposed to physical compared to odyssey. Would be good to see overall numbers and radio to console sales.
It’s crazy that Nintendo allowed the Odyssey team to make a DK game purely considering the monetary aspect.
Overrated
I wouldn’t think twice about buying Mario day 1
I did think twice about getting Donkey Kong day 1, however I’m glad I bought it
Tropical was a port, there aren’t many switch 2 in the wild and it should sell well, we don’t have many options for it yet.
Let’s talk again after Christmas 🙂
I bought Odyssey physical and Bananza digital. Therefore my sale counted for Odyssey and not for Bananza. I doubt I’m the only one.
I’d imagine more people are buying digital in 2025 than 2017
RIP game prices going forward.
I’m an hour into the game. When does it get fun??
people really thought this will be bigger than odyssey ?
I really am enjoying DK but DK unfortunately will always be that 2nd or 3rd character in that space. Mario will be that number 1 always. I still believe it’s going to do very well especially with the holidays coming. These sales and switch 2 sales are only gonna spike up even more this coming holiday.
Considering the extremely limited launch titles for S2 this isn’t at all surprising
Remember, physical sales. Far more people buy digital now than in 2017.
*Bananza
*Bananza
*Bananza
*Bananza
*Bananza
*Bananza
I just blew $700+ on my Sw2 and Mario kart last month plus a new controller. Donkey Kong is a single player game so I’m just gonna wait a few weeks and pick it up second hand for a steep discount.
DK has never been as big as Mario but I think the gameplay and style reinvention + word of mouth, along with early release in the console’s life, will give this game a very long sales tail approaching the same ballpark as Odyssey if not actually reaching its numbers. Anyone who picks up a Switch2 for the next year is getting this game.
The more interesting comparison will be the new Mario 3D game that presumably comes out in 2026.
Would rather have a sequel to Tropical Freeze
This game will have legs and sell a crap ton throughout the switch 2 lifespan. As others have pointed out, it’s been less than two months since the console launched. Very promising numbers for an incredible game. IMO this is a system seller.
It doesn’t need to be bigger than Odyssey, it just needs a good launch. People always want the new thing to be bigger than the last thing, but if you think for two seconds you realize that’s literally impossible to maintain.
I think a few mil sales for a $70 3d Donkey Kong of all things is a great opening weekend.
I would say nobody is surprised that the big new 3D Mario game for the big new console generation from Nintendo sold twice as much as Donkey Kong on the sequel console.