Pokemon as a series hasn’t really had a release that feels as momentous as Pokemon Legends: Arceus in quite some time, and given how desperately the series had been in need of a major shake-up until now, that’s easy to understand. That excitement, combined with the strong critical reception for the game, has unsurprisingly led to impressive sales.
As reported by Famitsu, Pokemon Legends: Arceus sold 1.425 million units in Japan within the first three days of its launch. That puts it ahead of the recently-released Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, which sold 1.39 million units in Japan at launch, as well as 2019’s Pokemon Sword and Shield, which managed 1.36 million units. It is, in fact, the second-biggest launch for Switch game in Japan to date, behind only Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which sold a whopping 1.88 million units on its Japanese launch.
Last month, Nintendo confirmed that Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl had sold 6 million units worldwide within a week of their launch in November. It should be interesting to see how Pokemon Legends: Arceus performs in comparison to that.
As part of its recently quarterly fiscal briefing, Nintendo also announced that the Switch has now sold over 103.5 million units worldwide, while also providing updated sales figures for the ten best-selling first party Switch releases and a number of other games, including Metroid Dread.