Pokémon Sword and Shield sells over 6 million units during launch week

Update: Nintendo have sent their own press release to announce that Pokémon Sword and Shield sold “just over” 2 million units in the United States alone (retail + digital). That makes it the “highest-grossing launch” of any Pokémon game to date.

Also, they have announed that since Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version, all mainline Pokémon games have sold over 240 million units worldwide (combined).

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Yesterday, we got the first sales data for Pokémon Sword and Shield, with Japanese sales: 1.36 million in 3 days in Japan (retail-only, but including download codes, since those are tracked by Famitsu). And today, we finally got some proper sales data for other regions.

The Pokémon Company have just announced that the latest entry in the mainline Pokémon series has sold no less than 6 million units worldwide. It’s now become the fastest-selling game on Nintendo Switch, beating the record set by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate last year (over 5 million units sold during the firtst 3 days).

What’s more, we also get updated data for Japan. According to The Pokémon Company, Pokémon Sword and Shield has sold 2 million units in Japan alone, which gives about 4 million units for North America and Europe combined. Unfortunately, no regional breakdown is provided.

The Pokémon Company specifies that the sales data was provided by Nintendo, which means that digital sales (including those that were made using the infamous Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers) are included.

Unfortunately, we don’t have an exact numbers for digital sales, but based on the retail sales provided by Famitsu, we can calculate that the game sold about 640 000 units via the Nintendo eShop, which is an extremely positive result even when taking Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers into account.

Source: Gamer