Nintendo have announced that Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield have sold 17.37 million units- surpassing all mainline Pokemon games on the Nintendo 3DS.
The games sold over 6 million copies in their first week in Japan, and 16.06 million units worldwide as of January 30th. Now, Nintendo have released their Consolidated Financial Statements Ending March 31st 2020, and updated their Investor Relations Top Selling Title Sale Units.
As of March 31st, Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield have sold a total of 17.37 million units. This surpasses the life-time sales of Nintendo 3DS Pokemon games; including X and Y (16.45 million), Sun and Moon (16.18 million), and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (14.27 million). Based on Nintendo’s website, Mario Kart 7 may be the only 3DS game to outsell Sword and Shield (at 18.71 million units).
On Nintendo DS, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are just ahead of Sword and Shield (17.67 million units); with Black and White (15.64 million), Heart Gold and Soul Silver (12.72 million) trailing behind them.
The news may be surprising to some. It was confirmed soon after the game’s announcement that not all Pokemon would be in the game, preventing them from being transferred from older titles.
While producer Junichi Masuda and director Shigeru Ohmori stated this was to dedicate more time to animations and other areas of development, fans were critical of trailer footage showing no marked improvement over the previous 3DS entry in the series.
Fans were outraged when the news was first announced, pushing both “Dexit” and “BringBackNationalDex” hashtags on social media. New footage of the games and leaks only fueled their frustrations that the graphics and animations had little to no marked improvement.
Some suspect the outrage reaching fever-pitch from leaked information was why the Japanese launch event was cancelled, and Nintendo even seemingly allowing people to cancel digital pre-orders of the games. The game’s userscore on Metacritic is at 4.6 and 4.5 (for Sword and Shield respectively) as of this time of writing.
The average reviewer metascore was 80, though our own review took issue with the game’s lack of difficulty, poor graphics, and missing trading features (now returning in Pokemon Home, even without the Premium Plan).
In case you missed it, Game Freak announced expansions for Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, including the return of some culled Pokemon, as well as new Pokemon, new areas to explore, and new challenges. You can read about them both here.
You can expect our coverage of other news from the recent Nintendo financial reports soon.
Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield are out now on Nintendo Switch. In case you missed it, you can find our review here.
Image: Nintendo
