Pokémon Series Has Sold Over 515 Million Units - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 May 2026 / 2,501 Views
The Pokemon Company has updated the lifetime shipment figures for the Pokémon franchise and revealed the series has now shipped over 515 million units worldwide as of March 2026.
The figure is up from 489 million as of March 2025, 480 million as of March 2023, 440 million as of March 2022, and 380 million as of March 2021.
It was also revealed the Pokémon trading card game production has topped 85 billion cards, which are available in 16 languages and in over 90 countries and regions.
The best-selling entry in the Pokémon franchise is the original Pokémon Red / Green / Blue with 31.38 million units sold, followed by Pokémon Scarlet / Violet, which has sold 28.28 million units, and Pokémon Sword / Shield, which has sold 27.16 million units.
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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When put up against the likes of GTA and Minecraft, for instance, these figures may seem a little low for a cultural juggernaut like Pokémon... until you realize these games sell for full MSRP. 35M copies sold between March 2023 and March 2026 with only one major release is absurd lol.
By number of releases
Pokemon is actually looking at about 14.7 million a release.
GTA is actually looking around 29.3 million a release
Minecraft is an astonomical 350 million a release (Just counted the main game)
As far as totals go, GTA should pass Pokemon by next year. Oh but then Pokemon will probably have the better part of the next two decades to catch up and surpass it again lol.
Sure... but most of those are GTA5... and most of those GTA5 units are from $10 sales
I own 4 or 5 copies of GTA5, I've never paid more than $15 for it brand new
To be clear... I could care less which sells more
Just think its obvious PkMn makes much more per unit sold, while GTA makes much much more from microtransactions
And GTA V is one game stretched out over almost a decade and a half.
All Pokemon games are exclusive to a single console company, if GTA would have been exclusive to PS only since it was created, it wouldn't be close to Pokemon in total sales. This is how all Nintendo's biggest franchises should be judged, they are competitive with the biggest multiplatform behemoths while being exclusives to a single company's platforms.
On the other hand, the GTA series is estimated to have made $10bn, with $8.5bn of that coming from GTA V.
Pokemon is estimated to have earned $115bn. I mean, it has all kinds of merchandise, where GTA pretty much just has the games and the Shark Cards for GTA Online, but still.
Is there a typo? No way it only went up 10 million between March 2023 & March 2025
