Nothing Can Knock Tomodachi Life Off Switch's #1 Spot

"You don't need us to tell you this, but Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is #1 again." That's how Nintendo Everything opened its weekly eShop charts roundup for May 23, 2026, and the resigned tone says everything about how this race has been going. There is no race.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has been parked at the top of the Switch's All Games chart for weeks now, and the latest numbers show nothing close to a credible threat. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sits at #2, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at #3, Minecraft at #4. These are games that have been on the platform for years. The top ten is a museum exhibit of Nintendo's greatest hits, not a competitive marketplace.

What strikes me about this chart is how little new software is making any dent at all. The newest entries on the full top 30 are MLB The Show 26 at #14 and Farming Simulator 26: Nintendo Switch Edition scraping in at #30. On the download-only side, Rune Dice and Rugrats: Retro Rewind Collection are the fresh faces, sitting at #8 and #22 respectively. Neither is exactly the kind of release that threatens a chart-topper.

A Familiar Top 30

Scroll through the rest of the list and it reads like a "best of Switch" compilation from three years ago. Pokemon FireRed and Pokemon LeafGreen are both in the overall top 15 and dominate the download-only chart at #1 and #2. Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game that launched alongside the original Switch in 2017, is still at #18. Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, Terraria, Disco Elysium; these are all excellent games, but their continued presence this high on the charts tells you more about the lack of new competition than anything else.

The download-only chart is arguably more interesting. Hollow Knight: Silksong at #16, Hades 2 at #18, and Deltarune at #19 all show up, alongside a trio of Devil May Cry games scattered across the bottom half. It's a healthier mix of genres than the main chart, but still nothing that's going to unseat Tomodachi Life from its throne.

I think what we're seeing is the natural wind-down of the original Switch's software cycle. With Switch 2 on the horizon, publishers aren't exactly lining up to launch major new titles on aging hardware. That leaves Tomodachi Life, which arrived at exactly the right time with exactly the right amount of casual appeal, free to dominate a chart where its biggest competitors are games most Switch owners already bought years ago. It's less a to Tomodachi Life being an unstoppable force and more a reflection of how quiet the Switch release calendar has become.

Nintendo Everything notes that the game "hasn't faced a ton of competition as of late," and that's putting it mildly. Until something substantial launches on Switch, or until the platform transition fully shifts attention to Switch 2, expect Tomodachi Life to keep its spot. The eShop charts right now aren't a ranking of what's hot; they're a snapshot of a platform coasting on its back catalogue while its successor waits in the wings.