Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was originally released on December 7, 2018. Since then, it’s become the third best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch.
It’s interesting that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has continued to perform well with consumers even after the Switch 2 was released on June 5, 2025. The fact that the Switch 2 is backwards compatible with most Switch games (including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) has probably helped with this.
Last we heard, Smash Ultimate was able to reach 37.44 million units sold since the end of 2025. The latest sales figures from Nintendo has indicated that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has sold an additional 320,000 units, for a total of 37.76 million, in the first quarter of 2026.
This is especially impressive when considering that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, still to this day, is being sold at full price. Indeed, every individual unit of the game has been sold at $59.99 since day one.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is effectively the most successful single fighting game entry ever. For better or worse, it will be quite the hurdle for the developers to figure out a way to topple Smash Ultimate with a sequel.
The Switch titles that have outperformed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, have now reached 71.08 million and 49.91 million.
As things stand right now, the best-selling game on the Switch 2 is Mario Kart World. It’s still early within the hybrid consoles lifespan, but the game has already pushed out 14.70 million units since it was released on June 5, 2025 (as a launch title for the Switch 2).
Unfortunately, we also recently learned that the price for the Switch 2 is set to increase in the near future. It will go from being $449.99 to $499.99.
To make up for this price increase, Nintendo President Furukawa is promising a strong Switch 2 lineup to increase the ownership value of the console.
“We will prepare a robust software lineup to enhance the Switch 2 ownership value. We will work diligently to overcome this barrier,” said Furukawa.
Nintendo President Furukawa says to overcome the barrier of the Switch 2 price increase, they will work harder on their software lineup:
“We will prepare a robust software lineup to enhance the Switch 2 ownership value. We will work diligently to overcome this barrier.”… pic.twitter.com/cqnbaiNl1j
— Stealth (@Stealth40k) May 9, 2026
Needless to say, it would make sense for the Switch 2 to eventually feature a new entry of the Super Smash Bros. franchise. Nintendo has historically had one game from this series on every main console since the Nintendo 64 due to its worldwide success.
However, we probably shouldn’t expect an announcement for this too soon since Masahiro Sakurai only just recently disbanded the team behind Kirby Air Riders. There are no plans to develop DLC for Kirby Air Riders.
With Sakurai freed up from overseeing the development of Kirby Air Riders, this means that he’ll likely be moving on to another game project, assuming he hasn’t already. It’s widely speculated that a new Super Smash Bros. iteration might be next on the horizon.
Of course, Sakurai has discussed before how he doesn’t see how the franchise is able to continue on without his direct involvement. This would mean that development on such a title could’ve only just begun at best.
In other words, it’ll likely be a few years before we even hear about the next game, but it’s very likely that Nintendo is interested in getting a new Super Smash Bros. on the Switch 2 eventually considering how the series continues to perform well.