Game news It took decades, but the Game Boy is no longer the machine with the most Pokémon games sold
If the Game Boy saw the arrival of the Pokémon wave and was for a long time the spearhead of the series, hosting its cult titles, the portable console has just been soundly beaten by another machine.
Console dethroned…
If for decades the Game Boy was the most successful machine in history in terms of the number of copies of Pokémon games sold, it has just been overtaken in the ranking by the latest from its manufacturer: the Nintendo Switch. In fact, the company, in its annual report, has just updated its sales figures concerning the software sold on said console, and the result is clear: 96 million copies of Pokémon games have been sold on the Nintendo Switch since the console’s launch in 2017.
See Pokémon Scarlet/Purple on Amazon
This is more than 20 million additional copies than for the Game Boy and its Color version which have “only” 75 million units sold worldwide. But beyond the numbers, it is especially interesting to note the sales shares of the different games that make up the 96 million units of the Switch. Among them, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet total 24.92 million copies soldwhen in March 2023, Pokémon Legends: Arceus had sold nearly 14.83 million copies. But these two titles are still far from matching the juggernauts that are Pokémon Sword and Shield which alone total nearly 26.02 million sales.
…but who always defends himself!
Although they represent impressive sales figures, However, the last three titles in the franchise remain far from their ancestor. In fact, if the Switch opuses justify the adage “Unity is strength”, Pokémon Red & Blue continue to hold them in line with more than 31 million copies sold worldwide. Of the same ilk, Pokémon Gold and Silver have nothing to be ashamed of either, with 23 million units sold.
If today these titles are considered to be from another time and have been replaced in the collective imagination by their remakes, the series continues to experience meteoric growth, despite the plethora of criticism which particularly attacked the technique of the latest opuses. The next game in the license – Pokémon Legends: ZA – was recently announced and will be undoubtedly soon accompanied by a release date, while the latest titles to date, Scarlet and Purpleare still available on Nintendo Switch.
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