With the updated financial data from Nintendo's latest report, we know that the Nintendo Switch has overtaken the Nintendo Wii in terms of sales. That's not the only upset, though, as the Pokemon franchise has seen a new contender for some of the highest sales figures the series has ever seen. As of December 31, 2021, Pokemon Sword and Shield have sold 23.9 million copies, putting it ahead of Pokemon Gold and Silver, and locking it in as the second-best selling Pokemon game, behind Red and Blue.

The current sales record for the Pokemon series can be seen below. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, the latest entries in the series as of the time of the financial report, have clocked in at 13.9 million units sold, making it the 12th-best selling title, only a month after their release in November 2021.

Red / Green / Blue – 31,380,000
Sword / Shield – 23,900,000
Gold / Silver – 23,700,000
Diamond / Pearl – 17,670,000
X / Y – 16,580,000
Sun / Moon – 16,270,000
Ruby / Sapphire – 16,220,000
Black / White – 15,640,000
Yellow – 14,640,000
Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire – 14,460,000
Let’s Go, Pikachu / Eevee – 14,330,000
Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl – 13,970,000
HeartGold / SoulSilver – 12,720,000
FireRed / LeafGreen – 12,000,000
Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon – 8,890,000
Black 2 / White 2 – 8,250,000
Platinum – 7,693,000
Emerald – 7,060,000
Crystal – 6,300,000

Source

 

[pedro702]

First, there's the Switch boost effect, this console just makes games sell well.
But at least that is not manipulable data, what is manipulable is the DLC. It replaced the third version which is counted separately in this chart. Lots of people only buy the third version (Platinum, Emerald, Black and White 2, ...) because it's usually the definitive experience. Meanwhile, in the case of Sword and Shield, the third version is more or less the DLC. So anyone wanting to play generation 8 needs to buy Sword or Shield.

If we merge the numbers of the third version with the base games, the list will be (doing mental arithmetic, I hope I didn't make a mistake) :

Red / Green / Blue – 31,380,000
Gold / Silver / Crystal – 30,000,000
Diamond / Pearl / Platinum – 25,663,000
Sun / Moon + Ultra – 25,160,000
Sword / Shield – 23,900,000
Black / White + 2 – 23,890,000
Ruby / Sapphire / Emerald – 23,280,000
X / Y – 16,580,000
Yellow – 14,640,000
Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire – 14,460,000
Let’s Go, Pikachu / Eevee – 14,330,000
Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl – 13,970,000
HeartGold / SoulSilver – 12,720,000
FireRed / LeafGreen – 12,000,000

Still very solid numbers, but not as amazing as it sounds.

Anyway, there's no proper way to compare these numbers, since they're released on very different systems which sold very differently.

why didnt you added yellow to red and blue then? lol seems wierd you missed that.

 

[pedro702]

I guess a better way of comparing the sales would be in terms of percentage of people who own the system they're on. How many GB owners bought gen 1/2, for example? How many switch owners bought SwSh? Etc.

Cuz I agree, the DLC being included with SwSh is an easy way of boosting its sales.

well the gb sold more than the switch so the gb userbase was even bigger than the switch if you want to go to that path lol

 

[SonicRings]

well the gb sold more than the switch so the gb userbase was even bigger than the switch if you want to go to that path lol

I know, though surprisingly the Switch is about to catch up to that, too lol.

 

[SonicRings]

why didnt you added yellow to red and blue then? lol seems wierd you missed that.

Good catch. Here's the list now:

Red / Green / Blue / Yellow – 46,020,000 Gold / Silver / Crystal – 30,000,000 Diamond / Pearl / Platinum – 25,663,000 Sun / Moon + Ultra – 25,160,000 Sword / Shield – 23,900,000 Black / White + 2 – 23,890,000 Ruby / Sapphire / Emerald – 23,280,000 X / Y – 16,580,000 Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire – 14,460,000 Let’s Go, Pikachu / Eevee – 14,330,000 Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl – 13,970,000 HeartGold / SoulSilver – 12,720,000 FireRed / LeafGreen – 12,000,000

Man, gen 1 absolutely creams everything now lol.

I must say I am very surprised to see how low HG/SS are, of all games. They're regarded as the best pokemon games, yet have so few sales relatively. Like, BDSP already beat them and it's only been a couple months lol.

 

[pedro702]

Good catch. Here's the list now:

Red / Green / Blue / Yellow – 46,020,000 Gold / Silver / Crystal – 30,000,000 Diamond / Pearl / Platinum – 25,663,000 Sun / Moon + Ultra – 25,160,000 Sword / Shield – 23,900,000 Black / White + 2 – 23,890,000 Ruby / Sapphire / Emerald – 23,280,000 X / Y – 16,580,000 Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire – 14,460,000 Let’s Go, Pikachu / Eevee – 14,330,000 Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl – 13,970,000 HeartGold / SoulSilver – 12,720,000 FireRed / LeafGreen – 12,000,000

Man, gen 1 absolutely creams everything now lol.

I must say I am very surprised to see how low HG/SS are, of all games. They're regarded as the best pokemon games, yet have so few sales relatively. Like, BDSP already beat them and it's only been a couple months lol.

i mean i am even sadder sun and moon is so high, imo its the worst pokemon mainline games, heck i would replay lets go pikachu before that crap, X,Y is abit unfair since your adding the third games and XY are the only ones without a third game/sequel besides the remakes lol

 

[Phearoz]

I'm still upset that "Gotta Catch 'em All" isn't a thing anymore.

 

[Windaga]

That's pretty cool. I thoroughly enjoyed Sword, though I think my favorite is still Platinum.

 

[SonicRings]

i mean i am even sadder sun and moon is so high, imo its the worst pokemon mainline games, heck i would replay lets go pikachu before that crap, X,Y is abit unfair since your adding the third games and XY are the only ones without a third game/sequel besides the remakes lol

Agree, but sun/moon is counting 4 games so that makes a liiiiiitle more sense. Still wild though. No idea why it was as popular as it was. I saw Alpharad's vids on it and it looked boring af. Tried it myself, and surprise, was boring af.

 

[Jester_Helquin]

how does this compare to Arceus? Most of the people I talk to love it and I could have sworn it had better sales then sword and shield

 

[pedro702]

how does this compare to Arceus? Most of the people I talk to love it and I could have sworn it had better sales then sword and shield

arceus came out like 12 days ago... its not gonna sell 20 million in 12 days lol.

 

[LightBeam]

I bought Sword, but I will not be buying future entries until things improve.

See ? That's the problem, you bought Sword. As if their blatant lies before the game's release wasn't enough to prove the game wouldn't be what we could expect.

And a lot of people did the same. They got angry at Gamefreak for lying about « oh but we have to work on the animations and the models », the nationaldex, complained about the region design, the overall difficulty which is laughable, Matsuda's argument that « kids need an easy pokemon game because if it gets hard then they'll play on their phone », the game technically being a joke
All of that, and it still wasn't enough to convince regular pokémon fans to NOT buy this fucking game. And yet it did the best launch ever for the franchise. People would complain all over the Internet but never cancel their preorder.

I don't have any faith in Pokémon fans to use some common sense and not succomb to their need of pokémon dose. Gamefreak will just make a tiny little improvement each time, just enough to have people saying « meh, it's an improvement, here are my 60 bucks » even tho it won't be enough.

Pokémon is just determined to have subpar games, as long as Gamefreak are making them. It probably won't ever change tho. Nintendo fans allow Nintendo and Gamefreak to do that, that's not just Pokémon.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

See ? That's the problem, you bought Sword. As if their blatant lies before the game's release wasn't enough to prove the game wouldn't be what we could expect.

And a lot of people did the same. They got angry at Gamefreak for lying about « oh but we have to work on the animations and the models », the nationaldex, complained about the region design, the overall difficulty which is laughable, Matsuda's argument that « kids need an easy pokemon game because if it gets hard then they'll play on their phone », the game technically being a joke
All of that, and it still wasn't enough to convince regular pokémon fans to NOT buy this fucking game. And yet it did the best launch ever for the franchise. People would complain all over the Internet but never cancel their preorder.

I don't have any faith in Pokémon fans to use some common sense and not succomb to their need of pokémon dose. Gamefreak will just make a tiny little improvement each time, just enough to have people saying « meh, it's an improvement, here are my 60 bucks » even tho it won't be enough.

Pokémon is just determined to have subpar games, as long as Gamefreak are making them. It probably won't ever change tho. Nintendo fans allow Nintendo and Gamefreak to do that, that's not just Pokémon.

I don't listen too much to what I hear about a game before it's even released. I need to see it for myself to judge it. And if by lies you're referring to the missing Pokemon, I honestly don't care. I want to try out the new Pokemon not use the same ones I've used before, but maybe that's just me.

 

[ertaboy356b]

Good catch. Here's the list now:

Red / Green / Blue / Yellow – 46,020,000 Gold / Silver / Crystal – 30,000,000 Diamond / Pearl / Platinum – 25,663,000 Sun / Moon + Ultra – 25,160,000 Sword / Shield – 23,900,000 Black / White + 2 – 23,890,000 Ruby / Sapphire / Emerald – 23,280,000 X / Y – 16,580,000 Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire – 14,460,000 Let’s Go, Pikachu / Eevee – 14,330,000 Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl – 13,970,000 HeartGold / SoulSilver – 12,720,000 FireRed / LeafGreen – 12,000,000

Man, gen 1 absolutely creams everything now lol.

I must say I am very surprised to see how low HG/SS are, of all games. They're regarded as the best pokemon games, yet have so few sales relatively. Like, BDSP already beat them and it's only been a couple months lol.

HG / SS being low is probably because of the low print count.

 

[SonicRings]

HG / SS being low is probably because of the low print count.

Ah, didn't realize it had a low print count. I guess that explains why it's so damn expensive for a used copy now.

 

[hobbledehoy899]

idk where you got the idea Gold and Sliver were Gameboy color only, they are not.

To be fair, Crystal is a GBC exclusive, as are the Korean translations of Gold and Silver (the adaptation of Hangul characters into the game required the GBC's additional RAM).

 

[LightBeam]

I don't listen too much to what I hear about a game before it's even released. I need to see it for myself to judge it. And if by lies you're referring to the missing Pokemon, I honestly don't care. I want to try out the new Pokemon not use the same ones I've used before, but maybe that's just me.

They lied about how they would have to work on the animations and 3D models, despite those being the exact same since X and Y.
People can still have a pretty good idea of what they are buying because they do, there are tons of ways to do that. When you buy, you endorse.
Now to be clear, I'm not attacking you or anything, you do anything you want, just like everyone else, it was just an opportunity for me to share my thoughts on the subject.

I'll wait for the next mainline games to see if people are willing to not endorse a bad game, maybe enough people were disappointed by SwSh to wait and see if the next one will be better, I have my doubts tho, but I would be glad to be wrong.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

They lied about how they would have to work on the animations and 3D models, despite those being the exact same since X and Y.
People can still have a pretty good idea of what they are buying because they do, there are tons of ways to do that. When you buy, you endorse.
Now to be clear, I'm not attacking you or anything, you do anything you want, just like everyone else, it was just an opportunity for me to share my thoughts on the subject.

I'll wait for the next mainline games to see if people are willing to not endorse a bad game, maybe enough people were disappointed by SwSh to wait and see if the next one will be better, I have my doubts tho, but I would be glad to be wrong.

I could live with the missing Pokemon, that's not what bothered me (because there are honestly way too many and I've never even used most of them) shame about some of my favorites not being in the game, but it gave me an opportunity to try the new Pokemon instead so it's not all bad. I liked quite a few of the new Pokemon. If I was judging it based on that then you would be right I should've known not to buy it, but I more meant just how short the games are (and then they had the audacity to ask for money for DLC just to bring it up to the length of any other mainline Pokemon game, content that everyone feels should've been in the game from the beginning)

 

[MK73DS]

why didnt you added yellow to red and blue then? lol seems wierd you missed that.

One can argue it's a third version, but I see it more as a very different game. RGB sold so much it won't really change the outcome if you add Yellow to them, so do as you please.

 

[Arilys]

I'll wait for the next mainline games to see if people are willing to not endorse a bad game, maybe enough people were disappointed by SwSh to wait and see if the next one will be better, I have my doubts tho, but I would be glad to be wrong.

The latest main series game is Legends Arceus, apparently.
Source(s):

"Despite its title not containing the full name of "Pocket Monsters" in Japanese, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is considered to be a part of the core series by the official website." ~ Trivia section on PLA's Bulbapedia article

I tried it out on an emulator and liked it enough that I might buy a used copy in a couple months, but there's still a lot of work that GF needs to put in to bring the games to a shadow of the quality of stuff like BotW, Xenoblade Chronicles or Fire Emblem. Especially for the 60 buck price tag (+ whatever they charge for DLCs, since the SwSh's Pass was relatively "successful" so we can count on future games also having DLCs).

And if by lies you're referring to the missing Pokemon, I honestly don't care. I want to try out the new Pokemon not use the same ones I've used before, but maybe that's just me.

I could live with the missing Pokemon, that's not what bothered me (because there are honestly way too many and I've never even used most of them)

A bit contradictory there, at least that's way I see it. If you haven't used so many of the "old" pokemon, what's the issue in having them in new games and available to use along with the new ones? It'd give you a chance to try them out, even if it's not in their original game.
Not to mention that there are people (like me) that like to go around catching all of them for the Pokédex.

That said, I think GF should just stop making more Pokémon (as in, more monsters) and start doing games with the 8 gens they have by now.
Focus less on "we must make number big because big number good" and then have most of the Pokémon be ignored by people (or worse, pulling more SwSh strats and cutting the pokédex and pissing off the people that won't have their favourites in the next game), and start focusing on making more interesting stories and post-game content.
Maybe even add some sort of randomizer to the games that makes the routes/caves/etc able to have different Pokémon in different playthroughs, allowing the player to make vastly different teams more easily when starting new games later on.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The latest main series game is Legends Arceus, apparently.
Source(s):

"Despite its title not containing the full name of "Pocket Monsters" in Japanese, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is considered to be a part of the core series by the official website." ~ Trivia section on PLA's Bulbapedia article

I tried it out on an emulator and liked it enough that I might buy a used copy in a couple months, but there's still a lot of work that GF needs to put in to bring the games to a shadow of the quality of stuff like BotW, Xenoblade Chronicles or Fire Emblem. Especially for the 60 buck price tag (+ whatever they charge for DLCs, since the SwSh's Pass was relatively "successful" so we can count on future games also having DLCs).




A bit contradictory there, at least that's way I see it. If you haven't used so many of the "old" pokemon, what's the issue in having them in new games and available to use along with the new ones? It'd give you a chance to try them out, even if it's not in their original game.
Not to mention that there are people (like me) that like to go around catching all of them for the Pokédex.

That said, I think GF should just stop making more Pokémon (as in, more monsters) and start doing games with the 8 gens they have by now.
Focus less on "we must make number big because big number good" and then have most of the Pokémon be ignored by people (or worse, pulling more SwSh strats and cutting the pokédex and pissing off the people that won't have their favourites in the next game), and start focusing on making more interesting stories and post-game content.
Maybe even add some sort of randomizer to the games that makes the routes/caves/etc can have different Pokémon in different playthroughs, allowing the player to make vastly different teams more easily when starting new games later on.

I haven't used them because I frankly don't care about most of them. Like I said I miss not having some of my favorites, but it was time I tried something new. Was getting bored of having half my team be the same Pokemon generation after generation.