Key Takeaways
- Pokemon Scarlet & Violet are now the best-selling domestic Pokémon games.
- The 26-year streak of Pokémon Red & Green has been broken.
- Despite mixed reviews, the popularity of the Switch has buoyed the latest mainline Pokemon games to the top of the sales charts.
According to a report from Famitsu, the 8.3 million sales of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet in Japan have made them the best-selling domestic Pokémon games ever, surpassing 1998’s Pokémon Red & Green. This represents the ending of a 26-year streak and is a testament to how widespread the Nintendo Switch is in Japan.
It’s difficult to narrow Pokémon sales to just Japan, but the popularity of a game domestically is often indicative of the game’s popularity in the global market, except for the odd exception. Joe Merrick of the Pokémon fansite Serebii recently compiled a list of Pokémon games ordered by their global sales. In that list, Pokémon Red, Green, Blue are on top with 31.3 million sales, followed by Sword/Shield with 26 million and Scarlet/Violet with 24 million. In the few months since the list’s release, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have likely climbed higher.
The Switch Era Is Hard To Match Commercially
The presence of the two mainline Switch releases in Scarlet/Violet and Sword/Shield in the top three, and even the 15 million sales for Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl is indicative of how popular the Nintendo Switch is, even with some of these games having a mixed reception. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were slammed at release for poor performance, with TheGamer giving the entries a 2/5 review score because of these glaring technical issues.
In a similar vein, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were lambasted for not including content from Pokémon Platinum, which is seen as the most complete version of a Gen 4 game. It’s none too surprising that, despite some mixed opinions on recent Pokémon games, the popularity of the series combined with the ubiquitousness of the Switch has resulted in record-breaking sales figures for Pokémon games on the Switch in Japan.
As for the future of Pokémon, Game Freak is currently working on Pokémon Legends: Z-A, the second entry in the Pokémon Legends series and set entirely within Lumiose City, the Paris-inspired city from Pokémon X and Y.
Taking trainers to the region of Paldea, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet add 107 new Pokemon for you to register to your Pokedex, as well as the brand-new Terastalization system.