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It's been an exceptional Anniversary year for the Pokémon franchise, from its Super Bowl commercial, to Virtual Console releases of the first-gen games, right through to the phenomenal success of Pokémon GO. Next up are Pokémon Sun and Moon, of course, bringing a new generation for the series exceptional levels of hype.

Nintendo had previously stated that it was the most pre-ordered game yet for the 3DS, and now further numbers reported out of Japan are eye-catching. First-run shipments have apparently passed ten million units - these will be sales to fulfil pre-orders and extra copies ordered by retailers, and that's a massive figure.

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For comparison's sake, to date Pokémon X & Y (combined) are the top-selling games on 3DS over the systems lifespan to date, sitting at 15.64 million sales as of 30th September this year. That's after around three years on the market, and those titles actually saw an upturn in sales during the Summer Pokemon GO boom. It seems that same interest is carrying across to the new games, which would have been big-sellers with or without the GO effect.

Ten million units shipped already is certainly impressive; they wouldn't be long odds right now on Sun and Moon becoming the top-selling 3DS titles overall within a year or two.

Are you on the Pokémon Sun and Moon pre-order hype train? Let us know in the comments.

[source dengekionline.com, via gematsu.com]