Nintendo Switch Sports

Multiplayer is included, supporting up to 4 players locally, and 2 players in online play with random matchmaking on the Internet. Development started shortly after the Nintendo Switch was released, when the director Yoshikazu Yamashita and his development team were asked to create a Wii Sports title for the Nintendo Switch. Most team members were newcomers to the series who had not worked on past Wii titles. The game was promoted prior to release with an online playtest in early 2022. Released worldwide on April 29, 2022. It received mixed reviews from critics, with reviewers divided over the enjoyability of each sport. It was a commercial success and sold over 18.32 million copies by March 2026, making it one of the best-selling Nintendo Switch games. A sequel, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, is set for release in October 2026.

• Title — Nintendo Switch Sports • Developer — Nintendo EPD • Publisher — Nintendo • Series — Wii • Platforms — Nintendo Switch • Released — April 29, 2022 • Genre — Sports • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Director — Yoshikazu Yamashita • Producer — Kouichi Kawamoto Takayuki Shimamura • Designer — Hirotake Otsubo Yoji Kamikawa Koji Kitagawa Kazuhiro Yoshikawa Atsuto Yagi Ryosuke Suzuki Sota Omiya Ikki Niwa • Programmer — Yuki Onozawa Hideyuki Tatsuta Kenji Iwata • Artist — Junji Morii Gurihiru • Composer — Haruko Torii Takuhiro Honda

• Illustration — A player aiming the ball in a "special" round of the game's online Survival Bowling mode Nintendo Switch Sports is set in a fictional multisport facility named Spocco Square, which contains three sports from previous installments (tennis and bowling from Wii Sports and swordplay from Wii Sports Resort; the latter is referred to as chambara within the game) and three new sports (football, volleyball, and badminton). Another sport from Wii Sports, golf, was announced and issued in a free update on November 29, 2022. As part of the June 2024 Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced the addition of basketball (previously featured in Wii Sports Resort), which was released as a free update on July 10. Players utilize the Nintendo Switch's Joy-Con in a similar manner to the other Wii Sports games, positioning them in a manner resembling the actual sport. The gyroscope functionality embedded within the Joy-Con is used to simulate motion in-game, compared to the usage of the Wii Remote (and occasionally the Nunchuk) to simulate motion in the other games in the series. Alongside Miis, new avatars called "Sportsmates" have been introduced, which have more detailed hair and faces as well as arms and legs. Additionally, the Leg Strap accessory introduced in Ring Fit Adventure is included in the physical copy of the game and is usable in Football. At launch, the leg strap only worked for Football Shootout Mode. As of the Summer update launched in July 2022, the leg strap can now be used for all Football match types. The game has multiplayer available both locally on the same system and online. Local matchmaking allows up to four local players to participate in games together in a similar manner to previous entries in the series. Online allows up to two local players to play with friends and participate in random matchmaking over the Internet.

The game was announced in a Nintendo Direct presentation on February 9, 2022, with a release date of April 29, 2022. A free-to-play online playtest of the game to test functionality and stability was available for registration on February 15, 2022, for those with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. The playtest was available to play during specific times on February 18 to 20, 2022. Takayuki Shimamura, who directed all the Wii Sports series, returned to this title as producer, and Yoshikazu Yamashita, who directed Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, returned as director. The project started a while after the Nintendo Switch system was released. Yoshiaki Koizumi, Senior Executive Officer, Deputy General Manager of Nintendo EPD, and general producer of the Nintendo Switch, called Yamashita and requested the development of a Nintendo Switch title in the Wii Sports series. According to Yamashita, 90% of the members of the development team were new members who weren't part of the past Wii series titles. Development of post-release content faced some setbacks. In September 2022, Nintendo announced that the golf game mode, which was previously targeted for release in September 2022, would be delayed to November. In October 2022, an update intended to address cheating in online play was released with a bug that caused the game to crash in both online and offline modes, forcing Nintendo to stop distributing the update and take the game's servers offline until a solution could be found.

The game sold nearly 190,000 copies in its first week in Japan, topping the weekly sales charts. Similarly, the game topped the weekly sales charts in the UK, South Korea and Taiwan. In the United States, it charted at number 5 for the month of April based on physical sales alone, becoming the second best-selling new release of the month, behind Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. It became the 19th best-selling game of 2022 in the US. Nintendo Switch Sports has sold over 16.27 million copies as of March 31, 2025. It was nominated for the British Academy Games Award for Family at the 19th British Academy Games Awards and Best Family Game at The Game Awards 2022.