Pokémon Sword And Shield Become First Entries Since Gold And Silver To Surpass 20 Million Sales

Wow, that's actually sad.

I have Pokemon Sword.
Will consider Pokemon Shield + DLC in cartridge on this year.

Pokemon needs a complete reboot.

@BongoBongo123 It needs a new developer.

This is becoming such an insanely common occurrence:

Game releases followed by:

"Fans" in the NA - Stupid game, stupid developers, they didn't do this, they didn't do that, game is dead, no one will buy it, end of series

Fans in the rest of the world - Thank you for making this game. Please take my money and make another.

And this is why we won’t see positive change.

Got the version with the expansion on cartridge and I'm enjoying it, the wild area, playing with Pokémon in the camp, the good old battle and catching mechanics

Surely the internet lowered my expectations though, so I went prepared

Btw lots of Switch entries are breaking records in their respective franchises, maybe Pokémon can get even better numbers if they get more ambitious... Maybe a wild area with more complex and believable behaviors, and Pokémon interacting with each other

I guess pokemon is now in call of duty territory. Everyone hates it and is not going to buy it. Everyone runs out and buys it.

The games don’t really reflect the sales much

@Xiovanni

Your anecdotical data is trumped by near record setting sales. Sorry, people like the game you don't, and game freak isn't going to listen to you.

Have a cry and get over it.

Well deserved these are the best Pokémon games since Black and White.

I'm so glad they did well! Had a lot of fun with these games.

@Vortexeo
So far it's sold just a bit less than 3 million this fiscal year (and we're 3/4ths done with it and past holiday sales). So if it continues at this pace probably not by possible by the time the Switch kicks the bucket.

Plus I'm sure there's going to be at least some type of remake from Gamefreak which will cause sales to slow down for S&S

There are, naturally, a great many snarky comments which come to mind. Hopefully there are yet critics who are not so closed-minded that they can't either 1) acknowledge the breadth of opinion on what constitutes a good game and accept that their own opinion may not be reflective of some Platonic ideal of objectivity, or 2) reevaluate (but not necessarily alter) their opinions in light of consistently and overwhelmingly disconfirming data.

Anyway, I'm glad to see the games and their creators enjoying success. I certainly enjoyed (and still enjoy) playing them, and I'll be delighted to experience whatever's next in store for the franchise's main line series.

The figures are disingenuous as they include the Expansion Pass cartridges as well (I'm really curious to know how well these have sold considering their high RRP) while other "enhanced" editions are listed separately. If Yellow/Crystal/Emerald/Platinum are listed separately from their respective original releases, then so should the Sword/Shield Expansion Pass editions, which serve more or less the same function.

If all of the Sword/Shield SKUs surpass Gold, Silver AND Crystal's sales (over 30 million) then THAT would be impressive, but as it stands, Sword/Shield is yet to exceed the combined sales of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum.

What depressing proof that popularity =/= quality. Who are these people buying anything Game Freak/TPC craps out, because they're doing the world a disservice.

Sword and shield are not bad games just very disappointing

Before the dlc this was my least favorite pkmn game. After the dlc this still isn't my favorite pkmn game, but damn when its good its great! I have well over 400 hrs on this gen and its all thanks to them making breeding and ev training so accesible. Hopefully they'll make more dlc.

@SeantheDon29 I've been seeing this mindset for a bit, and it really feels like peak armchair developer...

Regardless of who the developers were, they would still have to create tens of new Pokemon to an already 800+ roster, balance them for competitive play, create a still engaging story/setting, assure its accessibility to younger audiences, and coincide its release with the anime/movies, merch, the TCG, Play! Pokemon, etc.

We're not likely to get much radical change in ways of the mainlines until they stop profiting, which is why I feel energy would be better spent requesting spinoffs (which still wouldn't solve every problem, tbh).

I guess Pokemon will never be good again.

@Silly_G oh that's true, didn't notice it at a glance, I do think the third versions should count too... Great numbers but then this is invalid, both Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum crossed 20 million too

Not very surprising. Popular game franchise, popular system, good sales. Nothing to really write home about.

@DTFaux

You half right, but you've only captured one mindset ... the mostly western "I want this single player game to be new and fresh and exciting" one.

Gamefreak used to balance that with the JP mindset ... I want this social experience to reflect the cultural phenomena, I want to recognize the Pokémon my kid is using, and I want multiplayer balanced.

Sword and Shield is the first time they just completely ignored the western mindset. Scaled back the roster by getting rid of Pokémon that are not popular with Manga and Anime fans so that they could focus on a more streamlined and balanced online game.

That's the direction you're going to see core Pokémon go from now on, based on sales. The "Let's go" series will take over as the single player introduction for new players (who they hooked with "Go" in the first place)

@Vortexeo

Possible? Yes but very unlikely. If there is no mainline Pokémon game in 2021, Gen 4 is 2023 or later and especially if gets a selects re-release in a couple years maybe(Pokémon hasn’t gotten that or an equivalent since the GBA days I think) I could see it.

Only reasons are because SwSh weren't immediately outdated by a new game(s) the next year and the first to have DLC to support it. The games had so much potential, which makes it all the more frustrating knowing it could've been one of the best main series games if handled by another company. Instead we got a game that looks and runs like an upscaled 3DS game, which is weird because Let's Go looked better, and completely killed the long running 'Gotta Catch 'Em All' saying by being the first main series game to not let you have all the Pokémon in ANY capacity, even for a higher price tag and over priced DLC.

I only read “Worst Pokemon games surpass best Pokemon games”

I'm glad these games did well! I love 3D Pokemon and I hope GameFreak keeps making more. Hopefully with a bit more effort put in though.

I loved Sword & Shield, I think it's the best in the series..

@HeadPirate I see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I can fully agree the idea that they ignored the "Western mindset" in Sw/Sh.

I know it's purely anecdotal, but I enjoyed my time with Sword version, and it was a mostly single-player experience for me. I can't deny that it was a bit more streamlined compared to past Pokemon games, but that also made going through the story and completing my Pokedex feel like less of a grind. And I've been in it since R/B/G.

That aside, I definitely understand people's varied frustrations with the latest mainline installments (I have my hangups too)... But I guess my biggest concern is that a non-insignificant portion of the fandom is going to continue making themselves (and others) miserable if they can't temper their expectations and demands.

@HeadPirate Lol. I don’t know if you were keeping up with the absolute storm of tweets from Japanese players, but they were way harsher towards Gamefreak than anything I’ve seen from anyone in NA. Don’t imagine dissatisfaction with the state of these incomplete games is limited to one territory.

@HeadPirate yeah what loosers trying to ask for improvement and getting thier voices herd?

@Silly_G The expansion pass edition includes the main game. That has to be counted, the expansion itself isn't counted on top of it. That isn't a third version, it's the same game plus more.

@DTFaux We're getting New Pokemon Snap, that's a spin off.

@DTFaux

I think you and I are on the same page. “Ignoring” the single player doesn’t mean you sabotage what you already have, and it’s a pretty solid experience. The problem is that it seems western players want, ironically, a more JRPG style game with complex overlapping systems and endless reply. I think Sun and Moon is a huge example of trying to move in that direction (and honestly, that’s likely my favorite entry in the series).

They did a 180 in the direction of Sword and Shied, but still kept all of the improvements from Sun and Moon.

As for hang ups, I totally respect the position that this game didn’t deliver what a lot of people were looking for. That’s a personal experience, and you have every right to yours. The problem is that the western fandom thinks that gives them the right to “demand” that the game changes direction and always talk about how much they are “owed” for buying all the games up to this point. Contrast that to Japan (and most of the world) were there are still a lot of people who didn’t like this game, but the overwhelming sentiment is that gamefreak owes them absolutely nothing for past support other then the games they are paid for, and they are willing to trust the vision of the developers.

It’s like … honestly amazing how “You know, I just didn’t like this one, I might skip it and try the next one” is just a completely unheard of position in NA. It’s screaming, crying and death treats if it doesn’t fit your personal expectations exactly.

@NullPointerExcep The expansion pass version is not a third version, it's the original game plus the expansion. It should count and the third versions shouldn't.

I'm happy that more people are getting into pokemon. Hoping that game freak gives us an even greater experience moving foreward now that they had a chance to test the waters on switch.

@BTB20 still find it kinda sus, because it's "third version", not remake, not brand new game
But yep maybe they just compared 2 vs 2

@BTB20 Definitely true. I think that's the overall right path to take for folks who may be worn out or disappointed by the direction the mainlines are taking.

Shoot, even revisiting approaches like Pokemon Colosseum and XD would probably do a lot to help appease some of the fan demands, as that would allow any potential dev to really shake things up.

@HeadPirate Agreed. I definitely understand how hard it can be to just walk away from something one likes after years of investment, but I think it also saves a lot of frustration and heartbreak compared to turning one's frustration into a moral crusade.

There's too much stuff out there to enjoy (including other Pokemon-likes) to spend so much time being upset that a franchise isn't appealing to them like it use to.

All that said, in case anyone else is seeing this: This isn't me saying that you shouldn't voice your opinions or frustrations; just balance it a bit. We (and I'm sure TPC) already hear you.

@Bolt_Strike Dude, you're really saying that people who bought and enjoyed Sword and Shield are "doing the world a disservice"? Yes, the games leave a lot to be desired, but you're basically telling people who like the games that they are a problem.

@HeadPirate We we want is for them to stop taking out features every game and lying to us about why the removed stuff.

A lot of the frustration and anger comes from the game being rushed out to meet a deadline to launch with the anime. This meant stuff got cut. Then they lied and said things were removed to give us better animations and models... Both which were proven false before the game even launched.

Then we were told they couldn't fit all the Pokémon in but we found data for the Pokémon already in the game.

Then they said that we would have to pay for Pokémon home to transfer Pokémon... But with no way of telling when we might even be able to use them since they won't tell us ahead of time which gme gets what.

Then they added Pokémon that they told us they couldn't do through DLC.

Why do we even have to pay the price of two games to get both versions of both games? It should just be one game with the DLC of the second game, so you're just paying a little more.

So no, it's not just that westerners are whining or whatever you were saying, people from all over were calling out Nintendo and game freak over being lazy. The fact that the game sold well doesn't mean anything about its quality. It could also just mean people overall just like the brand.

Pretty strange considering all the backlash but oh well. I don’t care either way.

Nice numbers considering the steady drop off. I’m enjoying my time with it so far.

The expansions already show massive growth. I'm not worried about the future of the series.

I'm sure people will freak out when the Diamond/Pearl remakes aren't open world or whatever

Haven’t played this in over an hour and had great fun doing raids. Got a shiny Eevee and Lurantis. Might play again later tonight.

No.

I actually liked sword and shield, I didnt miss a lot of the pokemon that were left out, only a few. I enjoyed the expansions, I thought that they made up for a few of the things that the main game lacked. I would love a more breath of the wild approach to the series, It's probably a lot to ask for but if they did it good they could really restore the reputation of the franchise.

@BongoBongo123 Wouldn’t a reboot start with trimming down the Pokédex, removing backwards compatibility, and focusing on winning new/lapsed fans over diehards? Careful what you wish for, though you may well end up with the bestselling Pokémon game since the first Dexit (2003).

"It's popular, so the criticisms are invalid!"

@HeadPirate I guess criticism is bad apparently. But sure keep being a shill and pull up the sales as a defense.

@PortablexombieV2 Doubt it... there are quite a few people who hate the game, but I'm quite convinced that they are not representative of the buyers in any way... the ones who hate the games just tend to scream louder and probably a product of the culture we live in

Ahh yes Gold and Silver. The period where Gamefreak actually made good games.

I really enjoyed Sword/Shield. Probably my favourite gen since Gold/Silver. It's a shame not everyone loved them but I think they're great games.

Absolutely underserved in my opinion but I'm glad so many people are able to enjoy the games still at least. I wish I could still be one of them but they absolutely ruined it for me!

At least I still have New Pokemon Snap to look forward to! I hope they don't ruin that anyway.

Hopefully the next main entry games will be back up to the usual Pokemon quality that we had before X and Y. How I long for another good Pokemon game!

@iLikeUrAttitude

I love this type of comment. Oh SO yOu No LIkE CriTiCIsM? Like it’s some kind of gotcha, when in reality this is exactly the attitude I’m talking about.

It’s such an NA thing, that you think your opinion matters for some reason, there is some sort intrinsic worth in what you think, and your voice is important. Well, it isn’t. You're just some dude, just like me and everyone else.

Criticism is extremely important to Nintendo, which is why they pay expects in game design, game psychology, art design, and several other field a TON of money to criticize them. You know, people who have EARNED the right to be heard, who’s expert and practiced opinion has real worth.

You have ONE opinion that matters to Nintendo, one way to communicate and tell them what you think. If you like the game, give them money. If you don’t, do not give them money.

Anything else is just crying into the void about how sad you are that you’re not the most important thing in Nintendo’s world.

Get. Over. It.

@Xiovanni Pokemon is like 3% of Japan GDP. Critics against Pokemon is mostly funded by China to hurt Japan economy.

Well deserved.

A lot of people grumble, but I think Gamefreak and The Pokémon Company really understand what draws people to Pokémon and are bold enough to do the necessary things to keep the series on track.

A fair few fans would love Pokémon to actually follow the model of Final Fantasy. Where Square believed making their game a bigger and bigger production each time was the way forward. However that's only lead to Final Fantasy's problems as the games take longer and longer to make, but the games aren't actually any more liked for it.

Dexit was the biggest equivalent from Sword/Shield. From a game design point there's going to be an ideal number of Pokémon that a game is designed and balanced around, but the ideal number can't be an ever increasing number and a final fantasy approach would mean by the next generation they'd be balancing a game around 1000 Pokémon.

I don't doubt the same people who'd expected all ~900 pokémon in Sword/Shield are the same people who wanted all new models for them with handcrafted animations for the ~800 different attacks.

But this doesn't really enhance the game much, since all that work would just lead to a game with Sword/Shield's content taking far, far longer to accomplish. Except at the same time people also want the games to be bigger by default essentially with stuff like the battle frontier and content. that's usually in expanded 3rd versions which far fewer players are interested in.

In short really the desire for a AAA Pokémon game is just a self-destructive approach, which will just slow the series for how unwieldly and demanding the games will become to develop. Gamefreak would no longer be able to respond to changes in the market, the way they could respond to Pokémon GO with Pokémon LGPE within 2 years, while getting Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Moon out in the interim. Because Pokémon would become like Final Fantasy where it's like 5+ years between entries.

Am I the only one here who actually liked the game? Sword and shield were easily much better than the let's go games, and the dlc was fantastic.

I'm always confused by people who say 'how can you say the game is bad when you bought it?'
Surely those are the only people who have the right to say the game is bad, since they've played it? I wouldn't leave a book review of a book I hadn't read.

I played Sword, it's obviously incredible rushed. Of course there were parts I liked, the soundtrack was incredible and some of the areas were beautiful. The characters would have been good if they weren't forced on the player so much. But overall it felt very rushed.
I stopped preordering pokemon games after SM and I'll stop buying games on release after SWSH. I didn't buy the DLC, sure it looks nice, but it's increibly overpriced for something that feels like it should have been in the base game.
Overall it was an incredibly disappointing experience. So when people say 'if you don't like the games, don't buy them', I'd say you have to play them to know you don't like them, then don't buy the next one.

It's upsetting, because this has been one of my all time favourite game series. But maybe in future they'll get back on form?

Pokemon sells, and it was on a console that has sold like hotcakes. These games were always going to do well regardless of quality.

@BongoBongo123 @SeantheDon29 you folks meant to say "I need a reboot/new developer for Pokemon". The franchise wouldn't be feeling any dire need for either at a fraction of the sales above.

HeadPirate it's usually the difference between fans in general and the rest of the audiences, much less to do with geography.

Silly_G it would be equally disingenuous to ignore WHY the likes of Yellow are separate games. Even if you buy a complete expansion pass-bundled Sword on top of your already long purchased Sword, no scenario short of having lost the save files (possible, but parsecs away from default) will have you replay it all from damn scratch. I dare suspect even the actual number of Yellow/Platinum/Emerald "double-dips" among respective generation owners would have been much lower if the trade mechanics (still requiring multiple consoles as they might) hadn't made for at least some token form of "new game plus". Putting Swosh expansion bundles in the same basket as the base editions is no different from, say, The Witcher 3 [back in the day] or Starlink.

I hope they'll reveal figures for how many people bought the expansion pass as I'm particularly curious to see how that performed.

I just got the game with the expansions and I'm enjoying it a lot (I'm not a fan of the series, at all). It's a classic Pokemon experience with enhance visuals, and you can play it on TV as well. I'm not surprised it sold so well, honestly.

Aside from that, every series that comes to Switch sells like hotcakes. It has "something" that makes videogames (at least the Nintendo ones) sell more than usual. We've seen it this year again with Paper Mario, Pikmin and Hyrule Warriors, they're becoming the best selling entries in their series (PM:OK still have to surpass SPM, but it will). So now I'm looking at you, Metroid/F-Zero/Starfox/Golden Sun/Pikmin 4/Advance Wars/Kid Icarus,...!!

@HeadPirate

I love you're assuming that it's just NA being critical or expressing disappointment with the game. You have to be a special type of delusional to think that only one area in the world is being critical or expressing disappointment with the game.

What a terrible argument. You don't have to be a chef to judge food just like how you don't have to be a game developer or journalist to judge a game. Even then that occupation is beyond a joke and lost any credibility it has left. This is probably the most laughable thing you said thus far. You don't "earn" the right the heard, anyone regardless of occupation or status to free to express their opinions and criticisms. This is how change is made, not doing nothing and hoping something magically happens. A lot of games were changed with feedback but for some reason its always the nintendo fans scared of hearing anything negative about their favorite company. By not saying anything you're just enabling mediocrity.

Thats one good point you made - voting with your wallet, which is what I did by not buying the game. But I'm also free to display my gripes with the game in hopes Gamefreak will actually listen for once and make improvements to future pokemon games. If not I just wont buy it like I did with sword n shield.

Ah yes marking any form of criticism as crying and being entitled yet again then bringing up sales thinking it determines quality. You lot are getting really predictable.

How about instead you get over yourself and realize people will have different opinions than you. Not everyone wants to be in an echo chamber.

Why are platinum emerald and crystal so low?

And yet it was the only Pokémon game I’ve never could get into. Go figure

@Freddyfred we should all just shut our mouths and enjoy the same crapped out Pokémon that we’ve been had.

I don't understand how some people use sales as happy customers, JellyPop worded my thoughts pretty well. There obviously are many customers who likely are happy with the game but I assume a lot of them also got a lot of critique for the series.

Cyberpunk 2077 sold 13 million so far and that also got its fair amount of disappointed fans. I myself liked it, but that mainly is because I played it on a decent PC (which means I had a lot less problems than most console players) and didn't have the highest expectations for the story. I love the world of the game. But saying the complaints from others aren't there because it sold well is just ignoring facts. Another example could be the last of us 2. The friends I know who bought it hated the story of it, but considered the technical aspects of it very good. But a story driven game with a bad story is not the best experience for the player.

I myself have not bought Pokemon Sword or Shield, but I did enough research to come to my conclusion. I want the franchise to evolve and become something worth the gen it is on like other RPGs such as Dragon Quest XI or Yakuza Like a Dragon.

Remember when people were supposedly "boycotting" this game?
What a joke that has turned into, HAA!! 🤣

I bought Sword, played it for a few hours and thought it was pretty poor to be honest. It seems the developers are allowed to get away with mediocrity with its fan base. As a brand its insanely popular but as a game its many years behind where it really should be

@crimsontadpoles Perhaps but by the same reasoning Diamond and Pearl and B/W should have done even better than Sword and Shield.

Since the DS sold to an extent that might even be out of reach for the Switch.

@iLikeUrAttitude I'd somewhat agree with them though. A lot of people like to complain with one sided knee jerk reactions.

If you just try and ignore its the best selling entry in nearly 20 years and don't even attempt to consider how or why they achieved it. What good is that?

If someone just outright presume Sw/Sh didn't do anything better than their favourite entries, can they really be trusted to give helpful feedback?

What if the features Sw/Sh have which the other games did not were more vital to its success than the features they choose not to include? What if cutting the roster actually made the game less overwhelming to newcomers? The best sellers were both a lot simpler and had far less Pokemon than the games are now.

Probably the sales are okay because of the pandemic. It makes the appeal of a beautiful Pokemon that much more. At least, for me that's the reason I started playing Pokemon Sword recently. I am much rather stressed out by the question which Pokemon I want on my team, than by the news.

My main gripes with the game are the bad textures in the game world. I actually like the character and Pokemon modeling. And let's not underestimate that Dynamax does bring an entirely new game mechanic. A lot of UI has been polished and other game mechanics are more accessible.

Should they do better for the money they are charging? I do think so. As for game engine development and creating an immersive game world, there are many important improvements that could be made. In that are, you see other AAA developers making leaps that GF should also be making.

But let's be honest: I rather have this, than waiting years for that better Pokemon game to get developed.

I added to the count as my daughter received a Switch Lite & Pokémon Sword for her birthday in November. That made it 4 Switches & 4 copies of Pokémon SwSh in total for my household. All 4 of us got the expansions as well.

@kozaru
Sword/Shield had already sold 17 million copies before Covid became a global pandemic.

This is ultimately proof that we all still like the game, despite all of the complaints and nitpicky there are. We still buy it and we still play it.

Except I didn't buy this game. I left Pokémon a long time ago because it started to feel overinflated. I did play Let's Go Ever, however.

I enjoyed it and really loved the Isle of Armor. Still need to play Winter Tundra. I hope they go full wild area for the next region as it was far and away the best bit about it. As someone who has played them since the original Red too, I do wish they went for a massive graphics upgrade but I guess I'm dreaming a bit there.

Also, I would LOVE to be able to play older titles on my Switch rather than emulators etc. Why isn't this a thing?

@westman98 good addition! There is such a big fan base, so many different kinds of people to cater for.

Pokemon Let's Go is a better game than Sword/Shield. The only reason Sword/Shield sold better it's because if some will buy 1 pokemon game they will buy the core game of the franchise instead of the spinoff/reboot. I know I delayed buying Lets Go for that reason but it's actually a better game

Saaaaaaaaad

@Dr_Lugae Yes I agree that kneejerk reactions can be annoying but so can the snarky replies to anything remotely negative about the thing being they don't like being crticised. One one hand you have one side defending everyone and labeling everything even slightly negative as whining, entitlement, crying etc. while the other side does the same but the opposite to the point where its borderline harassment to anyone that even likes the game. I could go in more detail but its pretty obvious what I mean and it's probably been said a multitude of times.
But both extremes to this shouldn't be condoned nor encouraged its important to be respectful of ones views no matter who you side with. There are alot of things that I find flawed about Sword and Shield but that doesn't mean people aren't allowed to like the game or buy it. I just put my thoughts on it freely and don't reply to every person that liked the game "yOu'Re pArT of ThE pRoBlEm". One common trend I find annoying though is that many people here are quick to defend everything Nintendo does or label criticism as entitlement.

Well there are many factors to why Sword and Shield sold so much. I think its mostly due to the Switch's success and its momentum. Another thing worth mentioning is the Switch having a very high attach rate and every growing install base.
For reference the Switch already outsold the 3ds a while ago and its software sales are almost double that of the 3ds'.
(Nintendo switch - 79.87mil hardware sales, 532.34mil software sales
Nintendo 3ds - 75.94mil hardware sales, 385.85mil software sales)
Furthermore Pokemon as a media franchise is only growing and is getting a resurgence in popularity due the success of pokemon go and its the highest grossing media franchise of all time, so regardless of quality the games are going to sell well, which brings me to my next point.
Sales do not define the quality of a game, a game can millions and still be trash, I don't get why people still use this as an argument. It just simply proves that its a well established ip.

Now lastly...

"What if the features Sw/Sh have which the other games did not were more vital to its success than the features they choose not to include? What if cutting the roster actually made the game less overwhelming to newcomers? The best sellers were both a lot simpler and had far less Pokemon than the games are now."

I chuckled a bit reading this cause SwSh removed alot of features fans liked ironically and it still sold well, along with some new ones that people didn't like. But thats not to say the game is completely irredeemable. Also that its all subjective.
But to answer this I would call this a false correlation.
Most of the sales are from casual players and I doubt they even paid attention or even noticed the dexit controversy. They most likely would've bought it anyway.
The best sellers were simpler because they are much older games released on weaker hardware. The games are still simple, in fact I would argue that they're too simple because SwSh somehow manages to be easier than the 3ds games.

So you're telling me the people on the Internet calling these games garbage cashgrabs are actually a minority? I'm utterly shocked.
goes back to shiny hunting in dynamax adventures

Surely the ease of pirating games on the DS and 3DS contributed to those games having lower sales?

Keep in mind that people who criticize the games are included in sales numbers because they bought a copy too. Just because a person buys a game doesn't mean that they liked it.

I don't think it deserves some of the criticism it gets, but at the same time, it's definitely a little disappointing. As always, reviews have no impact on sales. 99% of people just don't look at sites like this.

Gr... LGP/E sold better than all remakes aside from OR/AS. That concerns me. At least OR/AS still sold better.

Well, if there's one good thing I can take away from this:

This needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but based off of an interview from a GF employee, GF has shifted a lot of their efforts away from Pokemon games. Why? According to the employee, when TPC noticed that a lot of revenue for Pokemon was coming from other places than GF's games, GF decided to stop prioritizing Pokemon as much and siphon away development teams for other GF properties.

Now, as to whether or not this great success of Sword/Shield over any modern Pokemon games actually changes anything in the grand scheme of things is questionable, but it certainly shows that Pokemon games are still worthwhile, I think. I hope they take that message away.

It sucks that the best games in the series have the lowest sales numbers. This is why we don't get good Pokemon games anymore. 😭😭

@ObeseChihuahua2 Not saying you can't like the game, but it's pretty clear that the people that are buying the game aren't really thinking through whether or not the games are any better than the previous ones (despite being 50% more expensive) or if they're remotely comparable to other $60 games. They're just buying up whatever Game Freak craps out and letting them get away with giving us less game for more money. That's why they're doing everyone a disservice.

@Bolt_Strike "Not saying you can't like the game, but it's pretty clear that the people that are buying the game aren't really thinking through whether or not the games are any better than the previous ones (despite being 50% more expensive) or if they're remotely comparable to other $60 games. They're just buying up whatever Game Freak craps out and letting them get away with giving us less game for more money"

That would only make sense if the games didn't increase in sales. But the fact they've increased even over Diamond and Pearl with the DS's 150 million userbase. vs the Switch's 79 million.

This suggests that these extra people aren't just buying everything. Sword/Shield has to have something that made about ~5 million extra players than the usual, who are now willing to pay $60 or £50, when in the past they wouldn't pay $40 or £30.

If Pokémon was selling purely on blind purchases on brand, the DS games should have the highest sales figures.

Lots of people in here seem to think the vocal minority on internet forums represent the whole of the fan base.

Having personally dealt with this phenomenon for nearly 2 decades, I assure you, it does not.

@HeadPirate ah yes, you pull facts out of nowhere, another guy replies showing that you're wrong, so you attack him even though he never said anything negative, just (correctly) pointed out that saying only NA is complaining doesn't make any sense.

Congratulations, that's peak debating! 👏🏻
See, that's what I mean when I say that the Pokémon defenders are way worse than those complaining; those who complain at least have some point to make about quality, while people like you just argue out of spite with absolutely no argument to make.

That said, if you enjoy the games that's great and I'm happy for you, just don't strawman people.

@Dr_Lugae this is just conjecture, but it makes sense that Swoosh would sell more, seeing as it's widely adopted by 25-35 y.o. with disposable income, as opposed to the DS being bought by children mainly.
So I guess a lot if people bought a Switch as adults and got back into Pokémon due to nostalgia as a result.
Think about it like the Disney remakes: how many people saw the originals as children and then took their own children to the cinema for the remake?
I think this is a plausible explanation, but it's obviously just a conjecture of mine so take it with a grain of salt.

@Dr_Lugae Or it means that the casuals that bought the DS were never interested in Pokemon to begin with, as most of the games that sold significantly higher on the DS/Wii were new, non-traditional IPs like Nintendogs and Wii Sports. And then once that group left for mobile those IPs all fell off a cliff.

@Bolt_Strike That still doesn't make sense, where do you think the 4-5 million additional players (and potentially more considering it's still selling) came from?

If "They're just buying up whatever Game Freak craps out" then why didn't these people buy it on GBA, DS or 3DS?

It was too easy to beat (I played through again with permadeath) and story is brain dead, but otherwise I had fun with it, not enough to buy the dlc though

@Dr_Lugae Probably lapsed fans that bought in on the Pokemon craze back in the 90s and came back through a combination of Go making Pokemon a fad again and the Switch being a much more successful handheld/hybrid console.

The frustrating thing to me about the online conversation around Pokemon games is that, as is the standard human mistake, many people confuse opinion for objectivity. If you want to make a claim about the quality of the game (which is an external attribute with stable measures across disparate markets and populations) rather than making a claim about your opinion of the game (which is an internal attribute whose measures are set and graded solely by the private preferences of whoever has the opinion), then you need to have some kind of external, universal, non-individualized data to support that claim.

Some critics have brought up a few items which they consider to be objective measures, sure. Those items can be evaluated on how well they are "objective," though. As a mild example, some people appear to have tied their opinion on the quality of SwSh to, say, the "bad textures" on the trees in the Wild Area. I have no idea if these critics routinely play an otherwise enjoyable and engaging video game, see a wonky-looking tree, and call the game a failure. Now perhaps a detail like that is, genuinely and truly, enough to detract from the experience for some people; if that's the case, that is perfectly okay. I have no counterarguments or criticisms of people who don't like a game because the trees look ugly; that's their opinion. However, outside of that individual with high tree-standards, an ugly tree is not a negative feature with the power to outweigh other, more positive, features of a game. So "ugly trees" is not an objective measure that can authoritatively conclude that a whole game (or the people who made it) are bad/wrong.

The above critical evaluation can be applied to any argument for or against the game's quality. If the "ugly tree" problem isn't your concern, replace it with a criticism you would rather consider. I, for one, have a great deal more sympathy for "Dexit" arguments, or the complaint that a Pokemon game that doesn't contain all the Pokemon is a worse game than one that does. There are sound logical arguments on both tines of that fork, ones that encompass more external considerations than, for example, "I didn't enjoy SwSh because I couldn't use Feraligatr, my favorite Pokemon." But even establishing some actually objective criticisms about the quality of a game, we then have to evaluate those legitimate criticisms in combination with, and with respect to, other objective measures of quality. I won't go through the whole argument as I did above with the ugly trees, but instead will just say that I've reached the conclusion that SwSh are worse than they could be by virtue of excluding many Pokemon but that, altogether, they remained successful and strong entries in the franchise's library by virtue of other things they did well. It is perfectly possible for a game to have some not-good qualities and still, overall, be a good game.

Hopefully, it's clear that I'm not discouraging criticism or mocking opinion. My aim is to primarily separate the opinion from the objective and then to evaluate the objective by similarly objective measures. I'll take a second here to remind readers: it is not expressing your opinion that draws harsh rebuke, but trying to present your opinion as an external reality. Turning "These games were not fun for me" into "These games are garbage, and the people who bought and liked them are bad" is where you go out of bounds. You have every right to make claims about your own preferences and your own experiences and those claims are unassailable because you are the authority on you. But if you want to make a claim about the reality outside of you then you need to justify that claim with facts that are external to you.

And as much as it seems to be pooh-poohed in the NintendoLife comments sections, one reliable measure of external quality is the data on commercial success. As it stands, SwSh are commercial - and critical! - successes. Vastly, inordinately, perplexingly so. And while another commenter - JellyPop - makes a significant and respectable point that some of those 20 million people who bought the game definitely ended up finding it underwhelming after experiencing it, we cannot assume that those people make up a major proportion of the sales figures, because the games are still selling highly and are still largely well-reviewed. If SwSh were modest commercial success and received middling-to-negative reviews on average, arguments against the financial data would have a solid footing (i.e. arguments like "Pokemon always sells well, so these numbers don't mean anything"). It is the sheer magnitude of demand and engagement with these games that neuters those arguments. And remember! There will be some next mainline game(s). We are going to have the opportunity to add more data and more critical evaluation to our understanding of the overarching status of the franchise. It may yet be the case that new games and new information adjust our understanding of the current status and let us draw different conclusions. But for right now, with the evidence we have before us, it amounts to conspiratorial lunacy to argue that SwSh are "bad" entries in the Pokemon series.

@nessisonett

Absolutly, what a Shame.
But it was clear that it will sell well with the overwhelming Customer Base on the Switch.

Well, it's my favorit generation which is a massive positive leap considering the last gen was easily my least favorit.

It is always interesting to see how many just talk as if people like me, genuinely liking this gen much more than the older ones, don't exist.

These games could have been better, as with all of the Pokemon games before, but I definitely liked them more than the 6th and 7th generation games. 7 could've been great, but the closed off island structure really didn't do it any favors and the Ultra games ruined the story (like B2W2).