I’m sure this surprised absolutely nobody
Well, here’s some news that’ll come as a shock to nobody at all. If the sales figures for the Japanese releases of the latest iterations in the seemingly-unstoppablePokemonfranchise are to be believed, the newest games —SunandMoon —have been a resounding success for Nintendo, The Pokemon Company and Game Freak.
According to Famitsu, the combined retail sales of bothPokemon SunandMoonduring the last three days have totalled at around 1.905 million in Japan alone. Keep in mind that these figures are limited exclusively to Japan, meaning that the overall number of units sold would be significantly higher when you factor in Western sales, too.
One thing of note is that these figures do not surpass those ofPokemon XandY, which sold around 2.096 million units during the same period of time. Of course, forSunandMoonto sell nearly just as much is an incredibly good sign for the game (and Nintendo shareholders), asXandYare, combined,the most successful games on the 3DS.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that none of these figures include digital downloads, which Nintendo has been pushing a lot more heavily as of late. Not only did Nintendo allow players topre-loadPokemon SunandMoononto their 3DS consoles prior to launch, which wasn’t the case forXandY, but digital pre-orders also came with a bonus of 12 Quick Balls that was clearly intended to entice players into buyingSunandMoonon the eShop instead of picking up a physical cartridge.
While these figures are a little interesting, I’m much more excited to see what the long-term collective opinion of the newPokemongames will be once the hype’s died down a little. After all, they really did change up a lot of aspects of the traditionalPokemonformula in some new and interesting ways, including the omission of HMs and alterations to Gyms (now referred to as Trials), both of which have been series staples sinceRedandGreen.
Pokemon Sun and Moon[Famitsu viaKotaku]
