Pokémon Legends: Z-A Had Biggest Physical Launch in the US Since Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 October 2025 / 3,800 Views
ircana Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella has revealed Pokémon Legends: Z-A had the biggest physical launch in the US since 2023's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
"Pokémon Legends: Z-A had a massive US launch at retail," said Piscatella.
"Launch week physical unit and dollar sales of Pokémon Legends: Z-A were the biggest for a new physical video game launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom back in May of 2023."
The latest Pokémon game sold nearly 1.5 million units at retail in Japan, according to Famitsu. The Switch version sold 872,552 units and the Switch 2 version sold 612,905 units.
In Europe, launch sales were also about 28 percent lower than 2022's Pokémon Legends: Arceus and had the smallest mainline Pokémon release in terms of units sold since 2018's Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu/Eevee.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A released for the Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch on October 16, 2025.
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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People buying garbage will end up buying garbage again coz that's what ninty, the pokemon company, and game freak be producing ever since swsh
The Nintendo switch era of Pokemon is beyond disappointing...
Tbh the 3DS era was just as bad. X and Y were awful games to me compared to the DS era. I feel like they will never adapt to modern gaming atp unless they just triple de size of their teams.
The DS games were awful compared to the GBA era.
3DS era is not bad. XY introduced Megas, also Sun and Moon is "okish".
I play since gen.1 and Switch is Just terrible. They even manage to "tarnish" Diamond and Pearl with a awful remake.
Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are the only remakes that i would never touch.
Diamond and Pearl were tarnished by Diamond and Pearl, the only mistake the remakes made was being fateful remakes of them. Platinum is the only good Sinnoh game, if we don't count PLA.
It's hilarious and sad that you are both correct, and that D&P and their remakes were so bad that you both can be correct.
Indeed, Platinum is the superior version, and it's not Just a "little better" like Yellow and Crystal.
It's a big improvement, similar to Emerald, but with much greater impact.
Still, my point remain, DS had great pokémon games. Pokémon started to suck with Switch.
What’s even more crazy is that these figures don’t account for the bundle. I cannot fathom how big gen 10 will be.
Gen 10, SV was Gen 9.
Do you think Gen 10 will be on Switch 1?
Oops my bad. Fixed it. Also. I don’t think so, no. Though I don’t think it’ll make much of a commercial difference anyways: (i) Z-A saw an approx even split across the two platforms, and (ii) SwSh has sold comparably well to ScVi.
Standards are low these days
Standards for Nintendo fans are indeed low. I mean, i can't blame the kids that Just want to play their "first pokémon", but adult paying $100 and praising/defending this awful game? Come on, for real!?
Edit: Just to be clear. I have no problem with people spending +$100 on a game, my problem is with the "Damage Control".
Some people will praise and defend pokemon, even when it's clear the game is overpriced and full of flaws ! Gamefreak is not delivering enough, that's a fact!!
Standard be low for a long time now 🤣😂🤣
This says a lot about the retail market for games in the US, probably Nintendo that keeps that retail games market affloat while every other publisher is dominated by digital at this point?
Maybe I’m missing it but I don’t see it anywhere, is this for Nintendo specifically or gaming in general?
What other big switch physical releases happened since TotK? Dont know how this compares to other recent 1st party switch games
U$13 Million...
