It’s only been a few days since the Nintendo Direct hosted by Masahiro Sakurai came out to talk specifically about Kirby Air Riders, revealing all sorts of information about the game and how much it would offer upon its release later this year for the Nintendo Switch 2. However, while all Directs are welcomed in one form or another, the question is, how would they be received? The irony here is that we actually have the answer, and it shows that one part of the world is really excited for the game to arrive this November: Japan.
How so? Well, as noted by Insider Stealth, the Japanese version of the Kirby Air Riders Direct has over 3.5 million views! That’s pretty impressive, especially when you look at the Nintendo of America version and see that, as of the time of this writing, it’s only at 1.8 million. So, yeah, that’s pretty much double. Plus, Stealth notes a key thing about Amazon Japan:
The Kirby Air Riders Direct already has 3.5 million views in Japan.It's also the #1 game on Amazon Japan right now.Who would have guessed that Sakurai coming back to Kirby after 20+ years would be a very positive thing!
— Stealth40k (@stealth40k.bsky.social) 2025-08-21T22:38:30.919Z
Also impressive, and a good sign that this title will do well, so long as the quality holds up. Nintendo will undoubtedly try to build off this with hands-on demos. One is at Gamescom right now, and next week, PAX West will also have one. It’s clear Sakurai worked hard on this game, so it’d be great to see it sell well so that he can see a big reward for his hard work.
