Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Sales are Off to a Huge Start

On Friday, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl launched worldwide, offering players a chance to revisit Sinnoh on Nintendo Switch. According to GamesIndustry.biz’s Christopher Dring, a lot of gamers opted to make that return to the region, as the game is the biggest Switch physical launch of the year in the UK! Shockingly enough, that achievement was actually accomplished by Pokemon Brilliant Diamond, alone. When combined with Pokemon Shining Pearl, launch sales for both versions account for the second biggest launch for all platforms in 2021, only coming up short against the combined multiplatform numbers for FIFA 22. 

The first of Dring’s Tweets about Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl can be found embedded below.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (No.1) & Shining Pearl (No.2) are the 2 best-selling boxed games in the UK last week, which means Battlefield 2042 has to settle for No.3. Combined launch sales for the Pokémon games are down 26% over Sword/Shield, and up 13% over Let's Go Eevee/Pikachu

— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) November 21, 2021

Remakes of Pokemon games have always fallen short of the sales for wholly-new entries, and that is also the case for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl; launch sales were 26% behind Pokemon Sword and Shield‘s launch. However, sales for the Gen IV remakes were better than Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! by 13%. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl took the top two spots for the week, beating out Battlefield 2042, which ended up the third best-selling game. Unfortunately, it will probably be a little while before Nintendo offers official sales numbers.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl is a remake of the fourth Pokemon generation, which launched on Nintendo DS back in 2006. The original Diamond and Pearl holds a special place in the hearts of a lot of gamers, and developer ILCA has done a great job keeping the feel of the game intact, while including modern elements. It remains to be seen whether sales will stay strong in the coming weeks, or how the January release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus might impact Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl‘s longterm success. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see!

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl is available now, exclusively on Nintendo Switch. Readers can check out our previous coverage of the game right here.

Have you checked out Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl? Are you a fan of the DS original? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!