Japanese Charts: Pokémon Sword And Shield Lifetime Sales Overtake Splatoon 2, And Smash Is Next

Quite looking forward to the new Yakuza myself when it comes to the west. Tokyo Mirage Sessions is decent for a port, given the original only sold 23,806 at debut according to Famitsu. Switch appears to be selling comfortably, both regular and lite.

Wait what? The PS4 is still a thing in Japan?

I really don't want to see it overtaking smash, if it does it will be a sad day. There isn't even a comparison in regards to the quality of the two games.

Those Switch numbers though. Good grief....

Won’t be long before the Japanese switch and switch lite sales overtake the global sales of the Wii U. As combined they are at 11.87 million units sold

@Chunkboi79
I Wholeheartedly agree. Smash is packed to the brim with content and love. Pokemon seemed rushed out.

@Digitamamon64 i might agree to some extent that gamefreak did drop the ball on sword and shield but the sales of sword and shield says other wise that many people have gotten over it plus the dlc content thats coming has won more people over.

Wow impressive numbers

@RiasGremory I think people bought pokemon cause it's pokemon.

not loving those #FE numbers. Still I hope it has legs on switch. Also looking forward to yakuza 7 (I'd import but I'm on 4 still so yeah). Also Pokemon can not be stopped! Good sales for sword and shield! I swear I feel like the xbox numbers are bolstered by like 10 MS employees with a storage unit.

People didn't just bought Pokemon S&S cause of the title. Word of mouth helps. Let's Go games didn't sold so much

@Chunkboi79 and what's the problem with that. It's their money. I bet a lot of people bought Smash Bros because its Smash Bros.

"Ohmygod, guyz, Pokemon is doomed because of Temtem! You heard it here first!" -No one, ever

Seriously, there are conspiracies abound as to why the alleged DDoS attack happened on Temtem's servers, including one going around that Nintendo actually did it. lol

Also, seeing Ring Fit Adventure continue to sell like hotcakes warms my heart.

@RiasGremory
I never said it wasn't going to sell. It's a mainline Pokemon game.

@AnnoyingFrenzy the problem is that people will buy a pokemon game regardless of "industry" or better yet "Nintendo" level quality. There's no incentive for Gamefreak to improve themselves.

Smash bros has advanced and innovated over the years. Pokemon is still the same stale bread they were selling 20 years ago

TMS couldn't even crack over 100k. Ouch

I always feel it’s unfair to lump two versions of the game together as a single sales figure. There are some people (myself included) who buy both versions of Pokémon games, skewing the numbers.

Switch + Switch Lite sales in Japan almost reached 100,000 units for a week in January, while the PS4+PS4 Pro had 2 bigger game releases and only managed around 6,000 units. ok, I know that PS5 will be out in another 9 months or so, and most console gamers are saving up for that, but that is still very impressive sales performance from the Switch for this time of year.

@Chunkboi79 And? So what? So people bought a product you didn't like and they may have done so because of the name brand. Again, that's their decision, it's their money. Bellyaching over why people bought something just seems a bit asinine no?

@AnnoyingFrenzy Idc what people spend their money on. I like the pokemon franchise and want to see it improve. So I didn't buy swsh because I don't support rushed/lazy products.

Just means that people that enjoy pokemon are okay with subpar quality and will continue to get games that are uninspired. If everyone is okay with supporting that, then there's no reason for people to complain when a pokemon game is less than stellar.

@Chunkboi79 So you've done your part, you didn't buy a game because you felt the quality wasn't up to your level of standards. I can respect that decision and share your concern with the Pokemon brand becoming stale and lazy. But complaining about why other people bought the game doesn't matter and I ask that you, and others in the comment section, respect other peoples game purchases for whatever reason they bought them.

@AnnoyingFrenzy I can say what I want. Honestly, I didn't say anything insulting towards anyone that bought sw&sh and mentioned that buying a game that is lacking in quality only supports that practice. If you don't like it then tough.

I like the Satoon concept but the games are still limited in many ways. At least he Pokémon games used to be awesome but are absolute rubbish these days.

@Chunkboi79 I can also say what I want. I didn't say anything insulting towards you for not buying the game, and only mentioned that the people who bought the game are probably fine with the quality as is and are completely in the right to support it. If you don't like it then tough.

@Chunkboi79 your entitled to your opinion i get that but being salty over sword and shield is getting old.

I was sad when Smash overtook Splatoon 2. This is even sadder. (Yeah, I think Splatoon 2 is better than Smash. Sue me.)

Loving DBZ: Kakarot. Wish they did a global release of Yakuza.

Tokyo Mirage did not even do WiiU numbers (on like 4X the install base?) 🤦‍♂️

[WIU] Tokyo Mirage #FE (Nintendo) {2015-12-26} — 23,806 / NEW

Japan and UK gamers rather play a new RPG at home than an old overpriced port at home and on the GO. Shocking! (needs a price cut)

@AnnoyingFrenzy Very well lol, I never said that I was upset with your opinion. Enjoy your subpar games.

Switch has sold 498,000 units in Japan during the first 3 weeks of 2020, up from 381,000 units sold during the first 3 weeks of 2019.

Ring Fit Adventure at number 4! And a lot of people said the game would flop...

Ha that's what Nintendo gets for giving Japanese gamers the censored NA treatment wth Tokyo Mirage Sessions there. That's what happens when you lazy Nintendo, not only did your game not sell well but it sell badly enough that your audience went back to PlayStation 4 bringing the platform back on the chart.

@retro_player_22 or maybe we just don't like silly jpop Anima teenager games.

Congrats to Pokemon, it's the best one in a very long time, And the online raids are an amazing addition that I enjoy playing.

@mesome713 I was talking about Nintendo's Japanese audience here. Not many people there bought the Switch port cause they rather keep the superior uncensored Wii U version.

@retro_player_22 nobody bought the uncensored version either.

The fact that a lot of people are buying both Sword version and Shield version means that the sales number will likely be higher than the usual standalone sale, so is not to surprising that Pokémon Sword & Shield sales grouped together would surpass other games in sales, it be far less if it listed sales for each version individually instead.

@Chibi_Manny not sure why anyone would buy the same game twice. Unless they just want to collect Pokémon Games. Most just buy the double pack cause they have two to three kids to buy it for.

@Chunkboi79 Very true. Smash lacks any big single player adventure mode or the enduring museum whereas Pokemon has a 30-hour story to play through plus post-game and DLC.

All joking aside I do love Smash Ultimate but Its probably my least played out of all the Smash games. I'm still doing 'arcade mode' with all the characters but can't even be arsed with spirits because they don't have that lovely bit of text explaining their backstory.

We can argue all day about how much effort it would take to add the missing Pokemon but how much effort is it really to type up a few thousand words for Smash?

@RadioHedgeFund Are you serious about smash having a story mode? You're comparing a RPG to a platform fighter.

Any type of fighter needs to focus on the core mechanics, gameplay, and functions of each fighter. Story has either come second or its not relevant to most fighting games. Pokemon is an rpg where story, setting, and aesthetics actually matter.

Yeah i forgot that i live in Japan and these numbers mean so much to me because yep, that's right, i live in... oh... wait... i don't live in Japan... So why is Japanese news relevant to me?

TMS was never going to light up the charts, on the bright side, these low cost ports don't really demand that high sales numbers. I'm just glad to have it on Switch after skipping it on Wii U. Gotta have those RPGs on a handheld imo.

@Razer This news matters because it's a japanese based company, and a lot of the trends for games they produce are based on the japanese market so it is actually important. Just looking at the sales numbers alone you can see how much of a juggernaut japan is for nintendo's sales of this console when it's over 1/4 of the units sold most likely for one smaller nation.

@RadioHedgeFund
Assuming that the average description is 50 words, that's over 650,000 words, not a "few thousand".

Plus there is 11 languages in Ultimate that all these descriptions would need to be translated for bringing it to over 7 million words

It's not an overnight process and not as easy as you make it seem. Probably won't stop you from complaining about it over and over again.

Next time, don't try to sell a new ip as a "crossover" and then proceed to censor it. It's selling worse on a successful console with a far bigger installbase than it did on the failure known as Wii u.

Although this is just physical sales, so who knows how much it is in digital.

@Razer Because it interesting to see plus japan is the only territory that gives actual numbers. If i care about a game and want it to do well why not. If you dont like seeing them then simply dont post, or look at them.

Everyone's talking about Pokemon, while I'm happy to see Yakuza doing well. Never played it myself, but friends of mine are familiar with it, and it seems like a fun time. Glad Sega's got plenty of momentum with the series, can't keep having a singe hedgehog carry your reputation in gaming (I don't really count Atlus' title since people don't really find them synonymous with Sega, or even seem familiar with the connection).

Please, no. I have seriously abandoned this franchise after this DLC. Got my hands on Let's Go for the first time last week, only to realise it has no pro controller support! Disappointment after disappointment. They need to pick it up and I'm really tired of people just bending over for everyone. Where yo head aaaat?!

@mesome713 Tokyo Mirage is a quality jrpg. SW/SH is an example of the opposite.

@Jayofmaya lol, that's a good one. Enjoy that so called quality then.

@AnnoyingFrenzy And supporting a product that could and should have been better, then to conplain about others expressed point of view is a bit saturnine, don't you think?

@mesome713 I will. You enjoys yours, then.

Xbone sales didnt reach 100 even when combined? Why even still sell it?

Kind of hoping Tokyo Mirage sold a lot better, might of help port Persona's games over to Switch (sorry, still begging)

@Jayofmaya Let's Go was a deliberately handicapped Pokémon Yellow port designed to sell the Pokéball Plus. Comparing that to Sw/Sh is like comparing Learn with Pokémon:Typing Adventure to Pokémon B/W.

I was genuinely concerned about Sw/Sh until I started playing Shield, it has a lot more depth & plenty of background improvements that you don't get from reviews. I'd definitely place Sw/Sh above X/Y or B/W especially for story & amount of endgame.

That being said, Splatoon is one of my favourite new IPs. If the Splatfests were still going Pokémon wouldn't have stood a chance.. Splatfests were a huge focus for a lot of my friends.

Xbox sells terribly goddam

@dougphisig no it doesn't matter because last i checked Nintendo has a global presence and when was the last time we got global sales figures for the Switch?

Want to know why this isn't interesting? Or relevant to me? Because Nintendo has already dominated their own back yard for the better part of 2 decades now.

Every 30 days they remind us of this... but when it comes to global sales? We last got them in July 2019...

I don't care about this regurgitated news month in and month out.

Tell me what you got globally, then it matters, I'm from the UK so im not even making this a regional thing.

I want the global figures.

And further to my above post.

Many of us hate to admit it but the fact that all of a sudden Nintendo have stopped releasing their global sales figures isn't reassuring.

I'm not saying their doing badly... I'm asking for proof of it.

Because every Nintendo fan right now wants to know if the Switch beat the PS4 over the holidays.

Those figures are LONG overdue and we keep getting these ridiculous Japanese figures like it hasn't been like this for YEARS... even the Wii U outsold the PS4 some months during its height in Japan. Let alone the Switch...

Give me the globals if you want to prove to me you're succeeding. I do not CARE about the Japanese sales figures anymore.

@Razer
First of the Japanese charts are weekly, not monthly

Second these don't come from Nintendo, they come from Famitsu unlike the quarterly reports.

Third the last update on global sales figures was in October, not September.

Fourth the end of the quarter is approaching, we should be getting the updated sales figures by the end of this month just like every other year.

@Razer If I'm not mistaken they release their quarterly earning report today, 22nd. I think historically they only report unit sales on the 6 month and yearly reports. Nintendo have never released monthly unit sales, even for Japan. The above numbers are from Famitsu.

Edit: Just checked and its not today its on the 30th

Just to try to prevent a silly argument from happening here's a link to Nintendo's Investor Relation's page with the console sales figure:
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html
You can see it has current console sales data as of September 30th, not June 30th.
It shall soon be updated with the current numbers as of December 31st 2019.

Switch in beast mode. And pokemon still the king of sales in japan

It is so sad how well this rushed game is selling. It's really undeserved if you ask me. Splatoon 2, Smash, Mario Odyssey, Zelda BOTW, etc deserve it a lot more.

But oh well. It's Pokémon. It sells regardless of quality, evidently. I voted with my wallet on this one but it does not matter once single bit.

@Yosher get over it dude.

@Razer You sure go out of your way yo talk a lot about something you don't care about though. Lol

@Chunkboi79 I bought the game and have had nearly 200 hours of enjoyment from it before the DLC even drops. On the contrary Smash lost my interest about about 20 hours. Everyone has different tastes in what they enjoy. Just because you personally don't like this Pokemon game does not make it a bad game. All the people who have bought and enjoyed it aren't "sheep" or "stupid fanboys" nor are they "hate buying" it.

We bought it because we enjoy it. We like the story, the raid battles, the competitive multi player, the shiny hunting, the nuzlockes, etc. We have a different tastes.

There apparently happens to be more people who seem to like Pokemon than people who seem to like Smash, does that mean one game is better than the other? NO it does not. It means different people have fun in different ways - and you know what? I bet you a weeks salary that at least 75% of Smash and Pokemon players own and enjoy both titles!