Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Eevee! are out today, and the title represents Nintendo’s bid to make the Pokemon series reach an even bigger audience than it traditionally does. For this, the game taps into nostalgia for the original set of titles which launched the series into stratospheric popularity, and also ties into the immensely popular smartphone game, Pokemon GO.
That latter part may end up benefitting it a lot, at least according to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella. As per an NPD report, it sounds like almost 15% of Pokemon GO players intend to buy a Switch to play Pokemon Let’s Go, at least in the US.
15% of Pokemon GO players is a massive number. It would be an unprecedented upsell from a mobile game to a console one, and it would probably boost Pokemon Let’s Go to selling a rather ridiculous amount. That’s about 7 million players who intend to buy a Switch and this game within the US alone, since there are 55 million active Pokemon GO players in the country right now. Even if the rest of the world severely lets the game down, at that point this will already end up as one of the highest selling games of the year—and may end up boosting the Switch to that elusive 20 million number after all.
Whether or not the game actually does end up selling that much remains to be seen. But it seems like early indications are encouraging. Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! are out now, exclusively on Nintendo Switch.