This morning Nintendo released some impressive sales figures for the newly released Pokémon Sword and Shield. Over 6 million copies of the game have been sold globally since it released last Friday, which means that Sword and Shield are “among the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch games of all time.”
In actual fact, it is the fastest-selling Switch game of all time. Previously, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate held the crown, with 5 million global sales in its opening week, a number that has been smashed (sorry) by Pokémon. These figures mean that Sword and Shield have delivered the “highest-grossing launch of any Pokémon game,” and has doubled that of Pokémon Let’s Go, which achieved 3 million sales in its first week. Nintendo went on to state that Sword and Shield has sold more than 2 million copies in the first 2 days since it’s release in the US.
These figures are based on both digital and physical sales of the game, whereas the recent success of Sword and Shield in the UK boxed chart is for physical sales only. In the UK chart, only two games have outsold Sword and Shield this year, with those both being multi-platform monsters in Call of Duty and FIFA. In terms of exclusive games, nothing has come remotely close to Pokémon, with the Sword version of the game alone being the biggest platform exclusive of 2019.
As impressive as all these figures and records are, Pokémon Sun and Moon still hold the badges for being the fastest-selling Pokémon game, having reportedly sold 7.2 million copies in its first week when it released on the Nintendo 3DS back in November 2016.
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