Top 10 Best-Selling Pokemon Games - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 January 2020 / 17,414 Views
The latest game in the hugely popular Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Sword / Shield, released last month. The franchise itself is over 20 years old as the first game launched in Japan in February 1996. The mainline RPG games are developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company.
The top 10 best-selling games in the franchise have nearly sold 180 million units worldwide. The franchise itself has sold around 300 million units and release after release of the mainline RPG games sells over 10 million units.
In total 2 games for the franchise have sold over 20 million units, 12 have sold over 10 million units and 19 have sold over 5 million units.
The original mainline RPG in the series, Pokémon Red / Green / Blue (GB), is by far the best-selling game in the franchise as the only one to sell over 30 million units. The game sold 31.38 million units lifetime. The second generation game mainline RPG, Pokémon Gold / Silver (GB), is the only other game in the franchise to sell over 20 million units, with lifetime sales of 23.1 million units.
Pokémon Diamond Pearl (DS) is the third best-selling game in the franchise with 17.67 million units, followed by Pokémon X/ Y (3DS) with 16.42 million units sold. Pokémon Ruby / Sapphire (GBA) rounds out the top five with 16.22 millionunits.
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu / Eevee, the first major Pokémon game on the Nintendo Switch just missed the top 10 with sales of 11.28 million units. The game should enter the top 10 list before it stops selling.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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If Pokemon Let's Go can get around 11.8M copies sold I'm sure that Sword and Shield will get above 12.72M copies sold. Personally, I think it will stop at 15-17M putting it between Black/White and Diamond/Pearl
I could be way off on this, but the amount of buzz I am hearing from online & from friends of mine who don't even PLAY Pokemon make me think that Sword/Shield will be a MASSIVE hit. I am predicting 10 million WEEK ONE - and 15+ million by years end, with lifetime sales getting close to the all-time champ Red/Green/Blue.
Excluding Gen 1, my 3 least favorite gens are at the top, while my favorite 3 are in the middle point, all 6 are close in sales as a whole but the order is funny to me, Black/White are my favorite games overall from the series.
I get the feeling Sword and Shield may end up at the lower end of this sales chart. There just seems to be a lot of bad blood for the game with the Pokedex issue.
of course, Red is the best.
What’s everyone’s least favourite Pokémon Game?
X/Y for me.
Gen 2! I love gold and silver. I really enjoyed X and Y as well but they were missing a good post game, a good rival and a bit more difficulty.
Mine is Pokémon Platinum
