Pokemon Sword and Shield Are The Second Best-Selling Pokemon Games of All Time

The 2019 Pokemon games Pokemon Sword and Shield continue to be a top-seller and recently reached a new sales milestone. Today, Nintendo released its quarterly financial reports, which includes a list of top-selling video games for the company over the past fiscal year. To no one's surprise, Pokemon Sword and Shield appears on that list, having sold 2.8 million copies since last April, which makes it the tenth best-selling video game published by Nintendo during that time period. What's a little more surprising is that the continued strong performance of the game makes it the second best-selling Pokemon game of all time, under only the original Pokemon Red and Blue games. The games' sales performance in 2021 helped it surpass Pokemon Gold and Silver by approximately 200,000 copies. 

Pokemon Sword and Shield were significant games for the Pokemon franchise. They were the first "traditional" Pokemon games released for the Nintendo Switch and helped launch the current eighth generation of Pokemon games. They were also the first Pokemon games to have DLC, which Game Freak in lieu of releasing an "enhanced" version in the vein of Pokemon Platinum or Pokemon Crystal. While the games generated controversy for not including a full "National Pokedex" and thus not supporting every species of Pokemon, the games have still performed remarkably well even 2 years after launch.

While sales figures aren't available for the most recently released Pokemon game, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Nintendo did also announce the initial sales for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. The pair of Pokemon games sold 13.97 million units through the end of December, making the titles Nintendo's best-selling game of its fiscal year to date. While Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl currently sit in the middle of the overall sales chart for Pokemon games, it's likely that the games will eventually surpass Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire as the best-selling "remakes" before too long. Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire sold a total of 14.46 million copies.

We should get an initial idea of Pokemon Legends: Arceus' sales when the next fiscal report comes out in May 2022.