Kirby Air Riders edges out Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition on the latest Nintendo Switch 2 eShop charts, while SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide quietly climbs. Here is what the top 20 reveals about first‑party attach rates and the power of legacy ports.
Nintendo’s latest Switch 2 eShop charts for the week of November 23, 2025 ended up being a lot more interesting than a simple ranking of what is selling. At the top sits Kirby Air Riders, a long awaited revival of the Kirby racing spin off that has been rumored since the Wii U days. In second place is Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, a port of a game from 2013 that has already been sold and resold across multiple generations.
That one two finish sets up a clean comparison between a brand new Switch 2 exclusive from Nintendo and a polished legacy port aimed squarely at Nintendo’s newly expanded audience. When you zoom out to the full top 20, a picture starts to form about how new first party releases are attaching to the Switch 2 base compared to the performance of familiar classics.
Kirby Air Riders Wins The Week
Kirby Air Riders grabbing the number one spot in the overall chart is a quiet but important signal about how hungry the Switch 2 audience is for fresh first party software. Nintendo has been leaning on remasters and upgraded “Switch 2 Edition” rereleases early in the system’s life, but Kirby is a genuinely new title that is not just a resolution bump or a content complete port.
The game’s premise is simple on paper: a successor to Kirby Air Ride that combines arena battling, city trial style objectives and high speed racing across both ground and air tracks. What matters for the charts is that this is a mid tier first party project, not a tentpole like a new 3D Mario, yet it still manages to sit ahead of a heavily marketed third party classic like Tomb Raider. That suggests that even outside of Nintendo’s biggest IP, attach rates for new exclusives are strong.
Kirby’s position also hints that Switch 2 owners are not only buying upgraded versions of what they missed on Switch 1. They are willing to stake a slot in their launch window budgets on something they have not played before, even if it comes from a familiar brand. In other words, the hardware is not just a remaster machine. It is still a place where brand new first party ideas can compete directly with proven multiplatform hits.
Tomb Raider Shows The Power Of A Smart Port
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition landing in second on the all games chart and first on the download only chart is a very different kind of success story. This is not a new game and longtime players have likely seen Lara’s 2013 reboot multiple times already on previous platforms. Yet on Switch 2 it is essentially behaving like a new release.
Part of that comes down to positioning. On the download only chart, Tomb Raider is at the very top, ahead of heavy hitters like Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. That indicates that a well priced, well optimized port of a proven single player campaign can still cut through the noise. Many Switch 2 owners that skipped other consoles last generation are treating this as their first contact with the series.
The contrast with Kirby’s performance is instructive. Where Kirby represents a classic Nintendo strategy of nurturing evergreen first party software that will likely sit in the top 20 for months, Tomb Raider’s spike shows the immediate upside of legacy content with low development risk. Attach rates for these sorts of ports can be extremely efficient when the audience is primed by years of word of mouth on other platforms.
In a sense, Tomb Raider is a stress test for how much room the Switch 2 has for non Nintendo, non indie catalog titles. Its strong showing suggests that publishers with back catalogs of Xbox One and PS4 era games are going to be tempted to bring more of them over, especially if they can hit that sweet spot of visual upgrades plus a reasonable price.
What The Top 20 Tells Us About First Party Attach Rates
Looking past the duel between Kirby and Lara, the wider top 20 skews heavily toward Nintendo’s own releases. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, Pokemon Legends: Z A Switch 2 Edition, and Donkey Kong Bananza all sit close behind the top two. Further down, upgraded versions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom still hold spots, despite being re releases of games many core fans may have already owned on the original Switch.
That clustering tells us two things.
The first is that early adopters of the Switch 2 are opting into multiple first party titles instead of just picking a single flagship game. When several big Nintendo releases are all charting together, it points to high multi game attach rates rather than just one monster seller dominating. It is not just that a new Zelda or new Pokemon will do well. It is that a new Nintendo console still drives players to steadily build a Nintendo specific library around it.
The second takeaway is that “Switch 2 Edition” rereleases are not cannibalizing the sales of brand new projects. Players who already invested in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom are still showing up for Kirby Air Riders and Donkey Kong Bananza, judging by the mix of titles in the top 20. That implies that many owners are double dipping on their favorites while also picking up fresh games, which is about the best case scenario from Nintendo’s perspective.
In practical terms, Switch 2 looks like it is hosting three parallel types of successful first party software at once. There are full scale new entries like Pokemon Legends: Z A, midtier experiments like Kirby Air Riders, and deluxe rereleases of older hits like the two Zeldas. The charts suggest that all three are coexisting instead of cannibalizing each other.
Legacy Ports Are Quietly Everywhere
Tomb Raider’s strong debut is not an isolated case. The top 20 is dotted with ports and remasters that have found fresh life on Switch 2. Mario Kart World may be the chart’s evergreen multiplayer staple, but it lives alongside modernized rereleases like Hollow Knight: Silksong Switch 2 Edition and Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD 2D Remake further down the rankings.
What makes this interesting is how those legacy or semi legacy titles sit beside Nintendo’s upgraded classics. Players are clearly willing to pay for better versions of games they missed or want to replay, provided those ports take advantage of the new hardware. In that light, Tomb Raider’s second place finish feels like part of a broader pattern more than a one off surprise.
At the same time, the charts do not show legacy ports pushing new first party releases out of the spotlight. Kirby and Tomb Raider can coexist near the top, each offering a different proposition to buyers. One is a colorful first party exclusive that leans on local multiplayer and a specific Nintendo feel, while the other is a cinematic solo campaign that speaks to the wider console market.
For third parties, this should be encouraging. It points to a ceiling where high quality ports can chart without needing the day one buzz of a brand new sequel. For Nintendo, the trick will be to keep that flow of ports balanced so that the eShop does not start to feel like a backlog museum.
SpongeBob Titans Of The Tide Quietly Climbs
Buried a bit deeper in the list is SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide, which manages the neat trick of charting twice due to separate Ghostly Digital Edition and standard releases occupying two slots in the overall ranking. That kind of double presence is a classic sign of a word of mouth driven climb.
The SpongeBob game may not have the marketing heft of a Kirby or Tomb Raider, but it benefits from a very different audience profile. Family buyers and younger players looking for a co op friendly platformer to sit alongside Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza are slowly pushing it up the charts. The presence of a premium Ghostly Digital Edition suggests that a subset of fans is happy to spend more for extra content or early unlocks.
From an attach rate standpoint, SpongeBob’s rise hints that licensed games can still carve out space on a Nintendo system even when the storefront is crowded with huge names. It likely rides in on the back of console bundles, gift card purchases and parents scrolling through the charts looking for something recognizable. Each of those scenarios contributes to a different kind of attach behavior compared to self directed purchases of big first party or prestige third party titles.
Where The Charts Go Next
Looking ahead, the key question is how sticky Kirby Air Riders and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition will be in the upper tier of the charts. Historically, Nintendo’s own releases have extraordinary legs once they secure a foothold. If Kirby can maintain momentum, it may settle into the same long tail pattern as games like Mario Kart and the recent Donkey Kong Bananza.
Tomb Raider’s trajectory is harder to predict. Many legacy ports see a sharp early spike followed by a faster drop off once the core audience has made the jump. Its fate will say a lot about whether Switch 2 owners see the system as a place to catch up on entire eras of missed games or just cherry pick the most acclaimed ones.
Either way, this particular week of eShop charts illustrates how dynamic the Switch 2’s digital storefront has become right out of the gate. New first party releases like Kirby Air Riders are attaching strongly. Legacy ports like Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition are performing near their theoretical maximum. Licensed titles such as SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide are finding room to grow.
For players, that means the top 20 is an unusually diverse snapshot where a pink puffball racer, a gritty island survival reboot and a nautical cartoon mascot can all thrive at once. For publishers watching from the sidelines, it is a clear sign that the early Switch 2 audience is ready to buy across the spectrum, from brand new exclusives to carefully curated blasts from the past.