Nintendo’s big new game reveal was more popular than Switch 2 in Japan

The biggest announcement from last week’s Nintendo Direct is not what you might think, but it could have a big influence on the Switch 2.

As far as most people in the West are concerned 3DS game Tomodachi Life is an obscure curiosity, amongst the least notable of Nintendo’s many franchises. But in Japan it’s one of the biggest.

The original game was released on the Nintendo DS in 2009, but only in Japan. And yet it still managed to sell over 3 million copies. The sequel on 3DS was released worldwide and saw sales of around 7 million. It was still most popular in Japan, but it also managed to sell more in France than it did in the US.

Different countries like different things but the surprise annoucement of a third game in the series for Nintendo Switch, subtitled Living the Dream, was a cause of such excitement in Japan that it’s had more likes than the annoucement of the Nintendo Switch 2.

As noticed by BoTalksGames, the Japanese tweet for the trailer has been viewed 27.9 million times and has 403,000 likes. By comparison, the Switch 2 annoucement has 57.4 million views but ‘only’ 385,000 likes.

Despite a much larger population, the Nintendo of America tweet has 15.8 million views and 188,000 likes.

The Nintendo UK one has had 3.2 million views and 17,000 likes but, strangely, Nintendo France has only 721,000 views and 6,100 likes – although it is pinned to the top of the channel, suggesting that they expected more.

That may say more about how popular X is in France than anything else, but clearly Tomodachi Life is a very big deal to some people.

In that sense it’s a surprise it’s taken this long for the franchise to arrive on Switch, especially given it’s clearly very low budget, but better late than never.

Explaining what Tomodachi Life is like is difficult, because it’s not really a game and there’s relatively little interactivity in it.

Tomodachi means ‘friend’ in Japanese and the idea, at least in the 3DS game, is that you send your Mii to go live on an island with other Miis – ideally those based on people you know, including those imported from a friend’s 3DS.

What gameplay there is involves customising your home and trying to encourage your Mii to make friends with, and romance, other Mii. It’s kind of like Animal Crossing but where the game is on autopilot, since you can’t control your Mii directly.

There are some very simplistic mini-games and some occasionally amusing skits, that appear randomly, but we found ourselves losing interest in the original after only a few days (like Animal Crossing, you’re encouraged to play it regularly but never for very long).

The people that like it clearly love it though and since Living The Dream isn’t due out until 2026 the Switch 2 is going to be well established by then, implying that Mii will still be a core part of Nintendo’s new console.

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