Nintendo has changed the criteria it uses to determine the Switch download charts on the Nintendo eShop.
As captured two days ago by the YouTube channel GVG, the Charts page of the Nintendo Switch menu previously ranked titles by number of downloads – as in, volume of sales – from the past two weeks. This was explained by a short line of text at the bottom of the ‘All Games’ Charts.
Now, as of today’s 20.0.0 system update for the Switch, the same page has a different message: ‘These are the software titles with the highest sales for the past three days.’
This is interpreted to mean sales by revenue, then, rather than by volume.
The change means that indie games are now mostly absent from the ‘All Games’ Charts tab where they previously might’ve appeared. More of them appear in the Download Exclusives tab next to it.
GVG’s footage from the eShop taken earlier this week showed a number of deeply discounted games that are no longer charting, like the Lego Ninjago game.
At the time of writing in the UK, only two currently discounted games make the top 30 based on the revised criteria: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition and Red Dead Redemption.
Nintendo mainstays like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and the Zelda series are among those ranking highly in the new charts.
The update has had a secondary effect of de-emphasising some lower quality or lesser-known games that only made the charts due to high sales driven by extremely deep discounts. These include more unusual offerings like clock apps.
It would appear to have changed how discoverability works on Nintendo’s eShop going forwards, and hints at how the storefront may function on the Nintendo Switch 2 when it launches on June 5.
The update also added the new Virtual Game Card and GameShare options to the Switch menu, among other changes.