Aaron Astle’s top stories of 2025: Solitaire’s surge, Nintendo Switch 2, and Pokémon TCG Pocket dethrones Pokémon Go

Regular readers will be used to the PocketGamer.biz team’s usual Week in Views roundups, but as the year draws to a close, it’s time to take a deeper look at some of the biggest stories of 2025.

Here, PocketGamer.biz news editor Aaron Astle gives his take on some of the key moments that have shaped the year, from the Switch 2's fast success to the latest in Japanese marketing.

Why are the world's top games publishers making solitaire games and has Playtika already won?

I always enjoy a good data dive, hunting for insights and reasons behind the performance of games, genres, and markets. This year, rarely have I gone deeper than in my analysis of the mobile solitaire genre.

I looked into installs and player spending based on AppMagic estimates, which suggested both grew slowly in the years before the lockdowns but suddenly exploded in 2020.

Since then, spending went on to peak in 2023 and installs in 2025. Spending has also been higher this year than in 2024, marking a return to growth after solitaire’s only decline of the past decade.

Even in an age when games like Genshin Impact, Fortnite, and Roblox take up so many players’ attention, this hundreds-of-years-old card game has risen again.

My research led me to explore the top moneymakers in solitaire, with Playtika taking a clear lead. I also found there are two major types of successful solitaire game: the innovators and the traffic-drivers.

Games like Solitaire Grand Harvest, Tiki Solitaire TriPeaks, and Disney Solitaire fall into the first category, all having creative level design and puzzle-like gameplay loops that incentivise spending.

Meanwhile, more classic solitaire experiences aim for organic downloads and thrive on their traffic, with high downloads meaning more eyes on in-game ads. Even if player spending is low, games with hundreds of millions of installs can still make solid sums with relatively little investment from developers.

As part of this genre analysis I also spoke with game design consultant Jakub Remiar, who predicted that solitaire would get "super hot" this year. He was right.

Nintendo Switch 2 surpasses 10m unit sales in under four months

2025 has marked the latest major moment in Nintendo history with the launch of the Switch 2.

Released on June 5th, the console’s release was met with immediate interest from fans and record sales numbers, hitting 5.8m unit sales in just 26 days. This more than doubled the original Switch’s launch month sales.

Fast-forward to September, the end of Nintendo’s second fiscal quarter, and the latest figures showed another 4.5m sales for the Switch 2, taking it beyond 10m in under four months. This makes the Switch 2 the fastest console in history to reach the milestone, achieved despite controversial game price hikes and a new disparity between physical and digital game prices from Nintendo.

Evidently, hardware improvements like the Switch 2's 7.9-inch screen, a 4K display in docked mode, 120fps, and HDR support have all culminated in a much-wanted level-up fans are more than willing to pay for, only bolstered by exclusives like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza.

On a more personal note, this Switch 2 moment makes my top five stories in 2025 despite me being yet to purchase one. It’s the first major console launch since my entry into the world of B2B games journalism, and as a lifelong Nintendo fan (I even own a Wii U), covering this hype cycle has made the Switch 2 a standout part of 2025.

At the same time, I’m still holding out for that big, exclusive Zelda, Pokémon, or Fire Emblem title before I take the plunge. Fire Emblem: Fortunes Weave is confirmed for sometime in 2026, so I suspect I’ll be adding to these record sales numbers next year. I’m just hoping for a more colourful Switch 2 design by then.

How Metacore cracked Japan's mobile market with Merge Mansion

This summer, I spoke with Merge Mansion’s product marketing manager Shuhei Watanabe about the importance of a diverse marketing strategy tailored to the nuances of various region. In particular, he shared insights into promoting games in Japan, where players have high expectations around communication and community management.

Watanabe believes "it’s definitely worth competing" but warned of factors that could undermine entire campaign efforts. Failure to provide proper in-game and social updates, for example, or featuring a character with a tattoo, could prove a huge issue in the country.

"This is why having trusted local advisors - or even direct connections to users - is so important when planning a campaign," Watanabe suggested.

Our conversation followed another of my data dives into Golden Week, a Japanese holiday from April 29th to May 5th each year. Many overseas developers overlook the holiday, which can prove such a lucrative time for mobile games, but Metacore knew how to make the most of it.

"Since Merge Mansion’s core character is a grandma, we reimagined her role in a local context and created a recycling-themed event, tapping into the Japanese cultural value of cherishing and reusing things," Watanabe shared.

According to AppMagic estimates, Japan is Merge Mansion’s second most-lucrative market.

Pokémon TCG Pocket dethrones Pokémon Go as it celebrates first anniversary and $1.3bn

Of the many milestones of Pokémon TCG Pocket, few compare to its first full year as the most lucrative mobile Pokémon title ever. And yes, that includes Go, which is estimated to have made 'just' $1 billion in its first year.

Pokémon Pocket beat the AR phenomenon’s first year by approximately $245m, making around $1.3bn on its own first trip around the sun.

That also makes it one of the most successful new mobile games in recent years, and it’s one that I’ve continued to log into every day, collecting over 5,000 cards to date. A lot of those are dupes, as is to be expected with any card collector, but Pocket’s F2P-friendly approach has allowed me to net some rare cards over the year, including some full-art Legendaries, shinies, and Pocket’s coolest exclusive, Immersive Cards.

Pokémon Pocket’s fast success was built on its launch with the original 151 Pokémon all appearing in card form, including the appropriately elusive Mew who spawned the closest thing to playground rumours we can get in this internet age.

2025 has been more varied, with developer DeNA jumping between generations every few months. Back in January, the focus shifted from 90s nostalgia to 2006’s Diamond and Pearl; in late April, it moved to 2016’s Sun and Moon; and in July it rewound to 1999’s Gold and Silver.

It’s a clever tactic, likely targeting spending from different generations of players depending on the era they’re nostalgic for. Those who started with Sun and Moon as 10-year-olds are 19 now, plenty old enough to spend on cards. And they're likely much more nostalgic for Rowlet than Bulbasaur: that old grass starter from a decade before they were born.

In my "top stories" article last year, I shared my hope for Pocket to expand beyond the original 151 bias in 2025, naming Turtwig, Rowlet, and Goodra as some personal top picks to make it to the game. I’m pleased to report all three have arrived this year.

How player feedback, memes, and rebuilt architecture led to Candy Crush’s "Fish 3.0"

Speaking to Candy Crush senior product director Alena Rybik marked my fourth interview this year around King’s Crush & Tell vodcast-style series, taking a peek behind the curtain at the development process of one of mobile’s most famous games.

My talk with Rybik saw us discuss Candy Crush’s Swedish Fish, a staple part of the match-3 giant since its release in 2012. Specifically, we discussed the how and why of changes made to Fish in 2025, the controversies surrounding the change, but the necessity to bring them up to date with modern level design.

"As soon as we began thinking about it, it became obvious that the old Fish behaviour could not support the complexity of modern levels. None of our 20,000 levels had been designed with Fish in mind, so we saw both an opportunity and a very big challenge," Rybik said.

Colloquially called Fish 3.0, the latest version of these Swedish sweets no longer target just jellies but the most useful blocker or candy to remove from the board. It’s an overhaul that gives them much greater purpose, designed to bring them up to standards with the game’s other boosters, and is meant to make the Fish feel "smarter".

Bringing this change to life required diving back into code more than a decade old, so any alterations programmers made required rigorous testing in case of any unforeseen consequences on the rest of the game. Rybik shared that this process led some of them to stop eating Swedish Fish in real life.

She also explained how Fish were integrated into Candy Crush’s square matching mechanic, a new feature that allows players to match in a box shape instead of in lines. The prize for doing so is a Fish, giving players more options and control during a level.

The change shows how Candy Crush is still willing to experiment and even upset some vocal fans if it means improving the game. And, in the end, it sounds like players have come round to view the change positively after all.