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

 

[Kioku]

Well, that's unfortunate.

 

[Didimai]

I have no faith in todays kids and their negative impact on the future of Pokémon.

 

[LeyendaV]

Regardless of the overall quality of each generation, what it's good about this is that Pokémon as a franchise keeps growing bigger every year

 

[Dr_Faustus]

Hold up, does this separate the paid DLC sales for the game or did they simply round them up to make it appear to have a larger sales number all around?

Something feels off here.

 

[Satangel]

Hold up, does this separate the paid DLC sales for the game or did they simply round them up to make it appear to have a larger sales number all around?

Something feels off here.

These are insane numbers, so fast in the lifespan.

Did gaming really grow this much in general, this really surprises me tbh.

Nintendo absolutely printing money with the Switch hot DAMN.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

That is decidedly undeserved. Sword/Shield are probably the worst entries in the series and if they're still selling like hotcakes despite that, all that's telling Game Freak is that they should continue making halfassed games with cut content released as DLC and not innovate or improve things. That is exactly the opposite of the direction I want Pokemon to head in.
I bought Sword, but I will not be buying future entries until things improve. I had high expectations from the Wild Areas thinking they were going to replace routes but as it turned out there was only a single Wild Area and about half as many routes as there usually would be, and they were short to boot. Sword/Shield looked so promising from early gameplay, which made the disappointment even bigger.

To anyone who pirated Legends and liked it, you should buy the game to show that this is what you want more of, and not more games like Sword/Shield. If Legends becomes the #1 best selling Pokemon game then maybe Game Freak will understand.

 

[BitMasterPlus]

Ok, why?

 

[zxr750j]

I bought them and liked them...

 

[Esdeath]

Shows exactly whats wrong with Pokemon, they are too big to fail.
They could probably take a turd and label it with Pokemon and it would sell.

 

[Tigran]

Gold and Silver are way over-rated, and not as good as people want it to be... and in a way has damaged the brand still.

 

[Clydefrosch]

it seems a little insincere to split up red blue and yellow, as well as sun moon and the ultra games.

 

[Clydefrosch]

Gold and Silver are way over-rated, and not as good as people want it to be... and in a way has damaged the brand still.

naw it was super fun

 

[ShadowOne333]

Keep feeding Game Freak and their idea to make effortless and minimal games at best to make a profit.
Next time they won't even include 1/3 of the Pokedex and make even more dull mechanics.
Who cares? The games are being purchased anyway, so they might as well go the lazy way out, like they have for years now.

Stupid sheeps.

 

[Kioku]

Gold and Silver are way over-rated, and not as good as people want it to be... and in a way has damaged the brand still.

Nice bait.

 

[Tigran]

It's not bait. It's the true. Fundamentally speaking, Gold and Silver were horribly coded messes, the pokeballs didn't even work right, the XP curve was horrible. Most people's love for it is more nostalgia than anything, and even now they all act like brats "But Gold and Silver gave us TWO regions!" every new game.

 

[CathyRina]

Not deserved at all but this is what being on the most popular Nintendo home console of all time does to you i guess. Let's hope that this PLA gameplay upgrade isn't a one time thing.

 

[pedro702]

It's not bait. It's the true. Fundamentally speaking, Gold and Silver were horribly coded messes, the pokeballs didn't even work right, the XP curve was horrible. Most people's love for it is more nostalgia than anything, and even now they all act like brats "But Gold and Silver gave us TWO regions!" every new game.

like the originals werent flawed codding wise, the originals type chart didnt even worked right lol.

pokemon gold and silver brought many things to the IP like day and night,held items,weather mechanics and many more, it felt a much more complete game in general and the remake heart gold and soul silver are hands down the best pokemon games ever made imo, i cant think of a single game i would call the best pokemon game, and i started with gen 1 and im still playing every game up until today.

Its the only game where you can see Game freak went over and beyond to make stuff for it on the game boy, heck the game could barely fit on the bigger gameboy cartridge at the time, it was the late iwata that made a compression algorythm to fit the game with 2 regions on the bigger gb cartridge available.Nowadays gamefreak doesnt push any boundaries they just try to keep it safe and simple, gen 2 was when they actually tried to go all out imo.

I did like sword and shield much better than sun and moon, ultra sun and ultra moon were the only games i never finished, the originals were boring as hell and the ultra version didnt change anything about that.

 

[MK73DS]

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.

 

[x65943]

This says more about the popularity of the switch than the quality of the game

I mean just look at the top songs to see popular =/= good