Grand Theft Auto 6 and a slew of Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 games are dominating the best-seller charts at Amazon in the U.S so far this year.
The top five best-selling games of the year at the retail giant are listed as GTA 6, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Star Fox (2026), Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.
Not far behind as well are 007 First Light, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Pokémon Legends Z-A, Pokémon Pokopia, and Sonic X Shadow Generations.
So what’s the deal? There’s an easy explanation for most of these top sellers at Amazon, especially if you’re following day-to-day discounts and deals. It’s also worth noting that these are strictly the top video games included in the best-seller list, while Amazon also lumps in anything else video game related to the chart, such as gaming gift cards, controllers, and accessories.
GTA 6 is the least surprising addition to this list. Despite it being a download code-in-a-box, this is still going to be the biggest game of the year, even with the ongoing physical vs digital drama that Rockstar and, subsequently, PlayStation have recently ignited.
Notably, the Amazon chart shows the Xbox version, but before you get ahead of yourself, I’m fairly sure Amazon’s charts work off data for both SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit), so this will include orders for Xbox and PS5.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream’s inclusion might surprise some, but the civ-sim has seen some crazy sales figures in the first half of the year, leading Circana’s US charts in April, and generating over $41 million in combined physical and projected digital sales. Even more interestingly, Living the Dream also contributed to a 44% year-on-year increase in consumer spending on new physical software in April 2026, reaching $96 million.
Star Fox’s inclusion is likely a mix of it being a big Switch 2 exclusive, released in the summer, reviewing well, and Amazon bestowing a $10 discount for anyone buying a physical copy in the run up to release. This purely price matches the new digital to physical price differential that Nintendo has implemented, but Amazon deciding to directly take this on is seemingly prooving quite fruitful for the retail giant so far.
Finally, both Mario + Rabbids, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s inclusions are seemingly the product of recent sale events such as Amazon Prime Day than ran from June 23-26 this year. Mario + Rabbids fell as low as $9.99, and became one of the best selling games of the shopping event.
Metroid Prime 4, on the other hand, is actually still discounted, in fact, and down to $44.99 at Amazon at the time of writing. Its Nintendo Switch version was also discounted during Prime Day, down to $29.99, and is more than likely contributing to the high sale numbers as well.
So What Does This Tell Us?
Over half way through the year, and it does still seem like Nintendo is dominating the Amazon charts for video games. One of the biggest debates surrounding the Switch 2 has been whether the console has a strong enough library of games to warrant the upgrade. Now, over a year into the console’s life cycle, the four out of five of the best selling games on Amazon are all Nintendo exclusives.
We don’t have the full sales data from Amazon’s “Best Seller” chart, and doesn’t take into account other U.S retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and GameStop, alongside global digital storefronts.
But, it does paint a somewhat vague, but undeniably interesting picture as to what consumers are gravitating towards when it comes to buying games as, for the most part, physical purchases from places like Amazon, one of the world’s biggest online retailers.
As far as the console ongoing success, it’s also hardly surprising. Nintendo Switch 2 also recently ended its first 12 months on sale as the second fastest-selling hardware in U.S. history. Fresh data from Circana revealed that the Switch 2 has a 5.9 million U.S. install base after a year, with only the Game Boy Advance’s 6.5 million units over its first year in the market exceeding it.
Nintendo has said Switch 2 is its fastest-selling hardware ever globally, despite some sales struggles at the back end of 2025 in western markets. Nintendo has also said it will increase the Switch 2’s price by $50, raising the console to $499.99 on September 1 due to ongoing market conditions.
Yet, the gaming giant has recently had an incredibly popular “Choose Your Game” bundle up on retailers like Amazon for $499, in which buyers can decide between Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Pokémon Pokopia as a free digital download included with their purchase. That’s a $20-$30 saving right now, depending on what game you choose, but up to $80 saved once the console price increase is implemented later this year.
Nintendo Switch 2: Choose Your Game Bundle
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Games to choose from are Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Pokémon Pokopia.
Ultimately, Amazon’s charts offer a fascinating snapshot of where consumer interest sits midway through 2026. Nintendo continues to dominate retail shelves, GTA 6 is already proving unstoppable months before launch, despite controversies, and aggressive discounts continue to remain as one of the biggest drivers of game sales, especially for those who care about physical copies, or the increasingly premium cost of gaming.
Whether that continues over the next couple of years remains to be seen. For now, though, one thing is clear: when players have the choice between physical and digital, plenty are still choosing the version that gives them the best deal, and right now, that’s often the one sitting in retailer warehouses.
Robert Anderson is IGN’s Senior Commerce Editor and resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Bluesky.
