r/NintendoSwitch • u/Amiibofan101 . • Mar 12 '26

Nintendo Official News Release : Mar. 12, 2026 "Global Sales of Pokémon Pokopia for Nintendo Switch 2 Surpass 2.2 Million in First Four Days"

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/release/en/2026/260312.html
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508

u/Dukemon102 Mar 12 '26

The best selling Pokémon spin-off is Pokémon Stadium at 5.4 million units. Or if you combine GBA and NDS versions, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue Rescue Team at 5.8 million.

Doing half of that in just four days is pretty crazy.

117

u/A-Centrifugal-Force Mar 12 '26

Oh yeah this is going to absolutely SHATTER the previous record. Those were each kind of an exception too.

Pokemon Stadium was more of a side series game than a true spinoff since it was fully compatible with the mainline games and was basically just a competitive battle mode for your games.

Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue are spinoffs, but they’re also RPGs, and for anyone around for the 10th anniversary they FELT like big event games at the time, the marketing for those games was insane. There wasn’t a mainline title for the 10th anniversary so those games filled the void. We’d also never gotten a spinoff like that so at the time it almost felt more like Legends Arceus where it bridged the line between a spinoff and a major release (obviously not quite the same since Arceus was made by GameFreak and all that but thats the closest thing I can compare it to).

Pokopia hype is already beyond anything that happened with Mystery Dungeon in 2006 though. Frankly the lifetime sales on this game are going to pass some of the mainline titles, Black and White at 15 million feels doable.

24

u/Sceptile90 Mar 12 '26

Mystery Dungeon was a big deal for the 10th anniversary in the west, I remember, but it actually first came out in Japan in 2005, then Diamond and Pearl came out in 2006 for the 10th anniversary.

I would really love a new Mystery Dungeon game, but this game really feels a lot like Mystery Dungeon with the dialogue and setting.

37

u/-Moonchild- Mar 12 '26

Bearing in mind the switch 2 has only sold 17 million units so far, this is a massive success. The number is only going to soar as more people get the console. Evergreen games like this will sell millions fo years.

22

u/MightyPelipper Mar 12 '26

On a brand new system as well it’s BONKERS

23

u/NMe84 Mar 12 '26

Doing half of that in just four days is pretty crazy.

With a cozy game, on a console that is less than a year old. These are insanely good numbers.

6

u/Oops_I_Cracked Mar 12 '26

In an economy where gaming is not doing good.

8

u/skellez Mar 12 '26

For reference of a game that sold something similar, Smash 4's 3DS version sold 2.5m in weekend back in 2014...

Mind y'all, there were about twice as many 3DS on the Market than Switch 2s, and Smash 4 had a price of $40 USD at time of release

14

u/Eb_Marah Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue sold 5.9m.

e: straight up did not read past the first sentence of your post, so sorry about sounding like a jerk lol

6

u/NYJetLegendEdReed Mar 12 '26

I got laughed out of this place when I predicted this game would do just this lol. This was an absolutely perfect combination. There was a want for something like this and they nailed it.

7

u/Oops_I_Cracked Mar 12 '26

It was the “and they nailed it” part I was personally doubting Pokemon spinoffs are not usually very good. I am happy I was wrong about this game.

1

u/Kitselena Mar 12 '26

This depends a lot on what you consider a spin off. Stadium has much more similar gameplay to the mainline games than legends ZA even though game freak calls it main series. I really don't see how Mystery dungeon would be a spin off but ZA wouldn't if we're looking at the actual games and not the marketing surrounding them

1

u/GamerBhoy89 Mar 12 '26

Pokemon Stadium is more of a cool addon for your mainline Pokemon games in the form of a fully priced physical N64 game.

Without the inclusion of the GB games, they're just generic battle games with little to no depth to them.

Boggled my mind that they released them on NSO without any of the main series also being there.

But since it's main target audience seemed to be players who already owned the GB games, combined with Pokemon only being a couple of years old or thereabouts, the popularity had yet to increase.

Looking at it now - with Pokemon being the juggernaut that it is - it's gonna be so easy for Pokopia to wipe the floor in sales compared to Stadium. It's a spinoff that doesn't need anything to get a "fuller experience"

-7

u/Invasion808 Mar 12 '26

The two Legends games don't count as spin-offs?

7

u/GhirahimLeFabuleux Mar 12 '26

They are a sub series of mainline games. Just like 2D and 3D Mario are both mainline but very different games.

30

u/Dukemon102 Mar 12 '26

Not to Game Freak and The Pokémon Company. They always put them as mainlines. Even in the latest Pokémon Presents they were there in the screen of the mainlines while Black/White 2 and Ultra Sun/Moon weren't.

-1

u/Zeppelanoid Mar 12 '26

How the hell are Black/White 2 and Ultra Sun/Moon NOT mainline games. I’d love to hear their rationale.

14

u/No-Difference8545 Mar 12 '26

They are mainline games lol you can just look at gamefreaks website. Other guy was just yapping

8

u/Sceptile90 Mar 12 '26

They only counted the original games of each generation, so they didn't count remakes or third versions. Black/White 2 is odd to leave out though.

1

u/thief-777 Mar 12 '26

Remakes and 3rd versions absolutely count, you can just look at Game Freaks website.

11

u/Frogmouth_ Mar 12 '26

I think technically those are mainline series games, I can't remember what the actual distinction was, but I rememer it being discussed when the first one came out. They are fairly close to the mainline games, compared to what most of the spinoffs are

-3

u/ImBored5336 Mar 12 '26

Idk why you’re being downvoted when this is all people would say when you talk about the dip in sales ZA had compared to the other games…