Donkey Kong Bananza has been a stellar return for Nintendo’s beloved ape, with the critical consensus from players and critics making it one of 2025’s best games so far, and as for its commercial success, it was reportedly at the top of the sales charts for physical games in the UK. That said, it didn’t come close to hitting the heights of Super Mario Odyssey’s launch.
The Game Business founder and editor-in-chief, Christopher Dring, posted on X that Donkey Kong Bananza was at the top of the UK’s physical sales charts, and that its launch was “3x bigger than the launch of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.” However, Dring reports that it was “less than half of Super Mario Odyssey’s.”
Donkey Kong Bananza was only released days ago at the time of this writing, so Dring is only reporting on the launch week sales. It’s also worth noting that it’s only physical sales for one region. Physical sales are still an important moniker for Nintendo games, since the only people still buying games physically seem to be Nintendo fans, but they’re not yet the whole picture of Bananza’s success.
As we get more information about Bananza’s sales in the coming weeks and months, it’ll be interesting to see how the game continues to take off. The comparisons to Nintendo’s main mascot and the last major 3D platformer we got from Mario are perhaps a bit unfair, but relevant considering that the team who worked on DK Bananza stemmed from the same team that made Super Mario Odyssey, and that’s before getting into all the gameplay similarities between the two.
In his review of Donkey Kong Bananza, Wccftech’s Nathan Birch, giving the game a 9/10 said, “Donkey Kong Bananza doesn’t monkey around, as it’s inarguably the biggest, most ambitious 3D platformer Nintendo has ever produced. Taking the formula established by Super Mario Odyssey as a starting point, Nintendo goes deeper, wilder, weirder, and punchier. Donkey Kong Bananza is perhaps a bit less refined than the near-immaculate Odyssey, but if you can overlook a few minor brown spots, this banana is very much worth peeling.“
