Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are Nintendo’s fastest selling games of all time

Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, the first new mainline entries into the Pokémon series since 2019, have become the fastest selling games in Nintendo’s history, the company has announced. The two games sold 10 million units between them globally in their first three days on sale, including both physical and downloadable versions. “This is the highest global sales level for any software on any Nintendo platform within the first three days,” the company’s press release reads.

Although it’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, Nintendo previously said Animal Crossing: New Horizons had the “best start ever for a Nintendo Switch title” after it sold 17.37 million units in the 11 days after its March 20th, 2020 release. The latest Pokémon titles appear to have sold over half that in a third of the time, putting it on track to outsell Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, which sold 6 million copies in their launch weekend, with lifetime sales of over 25 million copies.

In contrast, Sony recently boasted that God of War Ragnarök had become its fastest-selling first party launch title with just 5.1 million copies sold in its debut week. 

While we generally liked Pokémon’s latest entries, their launch has been met with reports of poor technical performance on Nintendo’s five year-old console. But these strong sales suggest that for most people, “more Pokémon” is enough to forgive any technical hiccups.