The Nintendo Switch has been a sales phenomenon and a return to form for the legendary console manufacturer, winning over massive audiences and revitalizing the company's home console sales after the Wii U failed to meet expectations. Part of the Switch's success has been thanks to a library of first and third-party titles that appeal to wide ranges of players.
Games as diverse as Hyrule Warriors, Animal Crossing, The Witcher 3 and the Crash Bandicoot remasters have all found a home on the system, but the biggest third party success on the console probably isn't one most adult players would expect.
According to figures from NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella, the LEGO franchise is the biggest third-party series on Nintendo consoles. The brick-powered adventure series is the ninth best selling franchise in video game history by sales in US dollars, and is celebrating 25 years on store shelves since debuting with LEGO Fun to Build on the Sega Pico in 1995, exclusively in Japan.
Modern fans are probably more familiar with the LEGO Star Wars sub-series by Traveller's Tales, and the multitude of games made with similar gameplay since the first entry in that franchise came out in 2005. The NPD Group says the series' best-selling titles in the United States include LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, LEGO Batman, and LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, while the LEGO Group says the best selling game in the franchise internationally is LEGO Marvel Super Heroes.
Based on the LEGO series' strong performance on the Switch, it seems that Nintendo's long-standing reputation as the company with the most kid-friendly consoles isn't going away anytime soon. Developer Traveller's Tales and publisher Warner Bros. were well known for releasing an absurd number of titles in the franchise during the 2000s and 2010s, but the last new LEGO game on consoles was The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame in 2019, and the only upcoming entry is LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga which looks to add some never before seen features when it launches next spring.
With The Skywalker Saga set to cover the last two mainline Star Wars movies in 2021, Traveller's Tales will probably have to find a new direction to continue the LEGO Star Wars series, which remains a top seller among the studio's many franchises. Disney's revised canon may have eliminated some of the Extended Universe options the series may have once been able to explore, but some of the modern stories would make for great fun with the series' distinctive gameplay. One popular fan wish that has seen a lot of activity lately is for a LEGO Mandalorian game, based on the current popularity of the Disney+ series.
Source: Mat Piscatella on Twitter