It’s been an eventful week in Japan from December 15th to the 21st as Media Create software sales have rolled in. Yokai Watch 2 continues its hot run, the latest Pokemon titles have surpassed two million units in sales and Final Fantasy Explorers had a strong debut.

Yokai Watch 2: Shinuchi managed to sell 532,724 units this week, bringing its total lifetime sales to 1,776,895. Combined with sales of Yokai Watch 2: Ganso/Honke, which sold 39,223 units this week and averaged 2.99 million units sold thus far, it’s not hard to see how successful the franchise has become.

Meanwhile, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire sold 167,534 units this week making the lifetime sales 2,118,015 units. Final Fantasy Explorers debuted with a strong 161,197 units sold, followed by Super Smash Bro. on the Wii U with 78,927 units (385,460 units over its lifetime) and on the 3DS with 74,226 units (1,910,078 units over its lifetime).

The other new entry in the past week was Gundam Breaker 2 which sold 66,532 units on the PS3 and 57,188 units on the Vita.

Question time. How do you make a TV commercial that is part CG, part live action and make it not a horrid waste of time? Simple. You take something that fits into a real world setting and you briefly play to those strengths while not over staying your welcome before moving on to the real meat and potatoes.

Perfect example, the Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire TV Commercial. Given that Pokémon are supposed to exist alongside humans it’s not weird to see them walking alongside some kids (I’m looking at you Sonic Boom). They even skitter into each other in a cute little moment of realism.

Then the trailer goes on to give you a brief look at the upcoming games “soaring” feature that lets you Fly on your Pokémon’s back like you’ve always wanted to before showing off a few of  the core updates like Mega-Evolution. There’s a brief platform advertisement lasting like 3 seconds and then it ends.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game is the world’s largest TCG, with millions of players worldwide, and a never ending stream of revenue generated via a steady release of expansions. The expansions always follow the latest video games that are released, and the latest one, Pokemon XY: Flashfire, is similarly following Pokemon X and Pokemon Y, the Pokemon games that were released exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS last year, that kicked off the sixth generation of the long running series to great critical and commercial acclaim.

The new expansion, Flashfire, features the powerful Mega Charizard-EX cards, five new Pokémon-EX cards, over 25 Pokémon from Pokémon X and Pokémon Y video games, along with 15 new Trainer cards, all of which sounds like it significantly expands the scope of the game.

The next installments in the Pokemon series are Pokemon OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire, due for release on the 3DS and its variants in November this year. The games are remakes of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, the underground fan favorite installments, and promise a new take on the thrilling adventure. Stay tuned for more coverage.

After its recent financial report, Nintendo revealed that it was bringing Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire to the 3DS which serve as “fresh takes” on the Ruby and Sapphire games from the Game Boy Advance era. Of course, there was some confusion as to what this could mean, since the company also promised a “spectacular new world”.

In a recent company investor briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that these games will be “full remakes”. Again, it’s fairly open to interpretation at this point but we can at the very least expect some revamped visuals. Mega Evolutions are confirmed at the very least, so we can look forward to some features from the recent Pokemon X&Y.

Nintendo also revealed that Pokemon X&Y which released late last year managed to sell 16.22 million units worldwide. Japan sales contributed to more than 5.44 million units (and counting). Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire releases for the 3DS in November.