Nintendo’s Pokemon Sun/Moon were already known to be massively successful games- the games had amassed 10 million in shipments before they even launched, and had set records in Europe and North America, while also selling through over 3 million in Japan. However, now we have exact numbers for just how well the games did.

Pokemon Sun/Moon sales are at 14.69 million units as of December 31, 2016– this means that they hit this unnervingly huge sales milestone in 43 days, or just six weeks. This makes Pokemon Sun/Moon the highest selling game of last year (yes, higher selling than Uncharted, Call of Duty, Battlefield, or any other game you could name) on a global basis, as well as the fastest selling games in the series, far outpacing the pace of sales that Pokemon X/Y achieved three years ago.

That’s not all, either- Pokemon X/Y and Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire, the other two 3DS Pokemon games, have continued to sell at an unrelenting pace as well- Pokemon X/Y sales are now at 16.06 million, making them the fourth highest selling mainline games in the series, and far ahead of Pokemon Black/White at 15.6 million. OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire are at 13.7 million, which makes them the best selling pair of Pokemon remakes ever.

These high Pokemon sales can be attributed in no small part to just how good Sun/Moon are, but also to the revival and resurgence in popularity that the brand experienced thanks to Pokemon GO. Nintendo’s mobile gambit, it seems, paid off, at least as far as Pokemon is concerned.

Nintendo’s hardware may have hit some hard times, especially on the home console front, but their ability to shift software remains unparalleled. How else do you explain the sales of Mario Kart 8, the excellent Wii U exclusive entry in the long running kart racing franchise, which has managed to sell a staggering 8 million units, on a console that has sold less than 14 million? That’s an almost 60% attach rate!

Over on the Nintendo 3DS front, Pokemon remains an extremely strong performer, its sales buoyed no doubt by the success of Pokemon GO. Pokemon X/Y stand at 15.64 million units worldwide, meaning the games have now sold more than Pokemon Black/White, conclusively putting the argument of declining Pokemon franchise sales to rest (as if Pokemon Diamond/Pearl‘s sales, which are far more than Ruby/Sapphire, weren’t enough for that). Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSappire, which have sold 13.18 million units, are also well over the sales for Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, the previous Pokemon remakes, which just gets the point across even more.

You can check out the full list of updated game sales for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software below, courtesy of Nintendo themselves. Doubtless, this is the kind of software performance Nintendo is hoping for on the upcoming Switch as well.

• Mario Kart 8 – 8.00 million pcs.
• New Super Mario Bros. U – 5.45 million pcs.
• Super Mario 3D World – 5.19 million pcs.
• Nintendo Land – 5.13 million pcs.
• Super Smash Bros. for Wii U – 4.99 million pcs.
• Splatoon – 4.57 million pcs.
• Super Mario Maker – 3.73 million pcs.
• New Super Luigi U – 2.74 million pcs.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD – 1.98 million pcs.
• Mario Party 10 – 1.94 million pcs.

• Pokémon X & Pokémon Y – 15.64 million pcs.
• Mario Kart 7 – 13.94 million pcs.
• Pokémon Omega Ruby & Pokémon Alpha Sapphire – 13.18 million pcs.
• Super Mario 3D Land – 10.98 million pcs.
• New Super Mario Bros. 2 – 10.60 million pcs.
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf – 10.34 million pcs.
• Super Smash Bros. – 8.35 million pcs.
• Tomodachi Life – 5.30 million pcs.
• Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon – 5.03 million pcs.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D – 4.52 million pcs.

Monster Hunter‘s growth and success in the west continues. The series, which has been famously dominant in Japan, usually did not use to sell a whole lot in Europe and North America- but that’s been changing of late.  After Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate ended up selling over a million units in the west last year, Monster Hunter Generations appears to be off to a flying start, too.

Nintendo is reporting that for the month of July, the just released Monster Hunter Generations was the highest selling game in North America- that’s right, it topped the NPD software charts for the month, selling an estimated 165,000 copies at retail (and of course, with more copies sold digitally). For a series that used to be highly niche, this is a major victory, and it all but guarantees that Monster Hunter shall continue to stick with Nintendo systems going forward.

The true victor in July, however, was another monster franchise- Nintendo’s 3DS Pokemon games saw, like in the rest of the world, increased sales on the back of Pokemon GO‘s massive success. Nintendo reports that Pokemon X/Y and OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire all saw major growth- OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire sold 80% more year on year, while X/Y sold a staggering 200% more than they did last year.

Overall, Nintendo saw some major inroads with their software this month: games playable on Nintendo systems claimed five of the top 11 spots on the July best-sellers list. These include Monster Hunter Generations from Capcom at No. 1, Minecraft: Wii U Edition from Microsoft at No. 6, Pokémon OmegaRuby at No. 8, Pokémon AlphaSapphire at No. 10, and Kirby: Planet Robobot at No. 11.

For Nintendo, with the impending launch of Pokemon Sun/Moon later this year, all of this can only be a good thing.

Nintendo’s strategy of using mobile games to attract users to its ecosystem appears to have borne fruit- as a result of the frenzy generated by Pokemon GO, sales of the Nintendo 3DS are up by more than 200% in the UK, retailers are reporting, with the 2DS being up by 222% and the 3DS XL being up by 234% year on year.

The increase in hardware sales comes as more and more people continue to purchase a 3DS to play mainline Pokemon games, as a result of the craze ignited by Pokemon GO‘s success, MCV UK reports, noting that all four 3DS Pokemon games (X, Y, OmegaRuby, and AlphaSapphire) charted in the weekly Top 50 charts, with Nintendo managing to get a staggering 10 games into the Top 50- making them UK’s number games publisher of retail games, in terms of value and revenue, and in terms of total units sold.

Retailers already expect this kind of craze to continue later into the year, feeding into the launch of Pokemon Sun/Moon, which look set to break franchise records when they launch later this year, exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS.

According to the late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s plan had always been to use its mobile games to advertise and supplement their console and handheld games, and to gently graduate mass gamers into its core hardware and software products- and it seems that with the wild success of Pokemon GO, we may finally be seeing that strategy bear fruit.

MCV UK is reporting that sales of the Nintendo 3DS system have jumped by over 100% in the UK on the back of Pokemon GO. That’s not all, either- apparently, sales of the 3DS Pokemon games have also seen incredible percentage rises, with some games seeing gains of almost 250% since the free mobile game’s launch. And it doesn’t end there, either: apparently, projections for the upcoming Pokemon Sun/Moon, the new entries in the franchise that are due to launch later this year, have been revised upwards thanks to renewed interest in the Pokemon brand owing to Pokemon GO‘s success, as well, with Pokemon GO now being in the top pre-ordered games in the region.

Retailers are now apparently anticipating a Pokemon Christmas- even though they expect Pokemon GO itself to taper off a bit, they think Pokemon as a brand will benefit in the long run. “Although Pokémon Go will probably tail-off a bit, we do expect the franchise to be one of the most talked about this Christmas,” said the senior buyer of one of the UK’s biggest games outlets.

How big were the gains that Pokemon games saw? Well, MCV UK have provided us a handy chart:

TOP SELLING POKÉMON GAMES FOR WEEK ENDING JULY 16TH (Sales Increase %)

1. Pokémon Alpha Sapphire – 148%

2. Pokémon Omega Ruby – 148%

3. Pokémon X – 238%

4. Pokémon Y – 188%

5. Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon – 65%

These five games in total –148%

Pokémon Total – 145%

So… yeah, that’s some major bumps all these games, and the 3DS hardware, are seeing. It’ll be interesting to see how well Pokemon Sun/Moon perform now, once they launch this November exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS worldwide.

The Pokemon Company have announced that they will be ending the Pokemon Global Link Service for Pokemon X/Y and OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire this year in late October. Once the service ends, players will not be able to link these games to the service, although they can still go ahead and link them up now, should they want to.

What does this mean, simply put, for the average player? Well, not much, since the Global Link Service has very little to do with the online modes in these games. It means that players’ PokeMiles that they accrued in these games cannot be carried over into Sun/Moon, and that they will no longer be able to use GameSync. it also means that players won’t be able to maintain a Trading Log for the Global Trading Station (though the Global Trading Station itself will continue to be available), and that they won’t able to participate in Random Matchup Rating Battles.

All of this said, they still can and will be able to enjoy almost all online functionality in these games without issues- this includes Random Matchup Free Battles, the GTS, and Wonder Trades, and of course, any activities with trades and battles with friends.

Pokemon X/Y and OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire are available exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS. Pokemon Sun/Moon are slated to launch exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS this November.

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have announced a brand new Pokemon – the creature, not the video game – which will be made available via some form of event next year. Voncanion is a Fire and Water type Pokemon, which uses fire and water to create steam within its body, expelling explosive shock waves and boiling steam from the arms on its back. The power is said to be great enough to blow away an entire mountain, gouging out the earth and changing the shape of the land.

More importantly, I’m not quite sure how the hell a Fire and Water type Pokemon is even supposed to work- what would it be weak against? Would it be weak against anything?

Presumably, Volcanion will be made available for Pokemon X/Y and Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire, both of which are available right now exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS. No new Pokemon game has yet been announced, though Game Freak is widely believed to be working on the seventh entry in the franchise.

New updates and patches are now available for all the Pokemon games on the 3DS. This includes Pokemon X and Y, and Pokemon OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire.

The patches do not bring with them any major gameplay change or even a visible bug fix- it’s mostly behind the scenes tinkering and some stability work. It can also be assumed that the updates address the multiple new exploits that have begun to crop up in the games that permit players to hack, duplicate, or generate Pokemon illegally, and obtain them without actually encountering or acquiring them in game.

To enforce the new update, it will be needed to play either of the games online any more. it won’t take too much space on your system (or indeed, too much time to download). However, it is a mandatory patch required if you want to take your game online.

Pokemon X/Y and Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire are both available exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS.

Nintendo is doomed. No, wait.

If there is one thing that the company’s thirty plus year history in the video game market should prove, it is that one should never count them out. Since the early 1990s, people have constantly proclaimed doom for the company, pointing to trends, fads, numbers, charts, market conditions, what have you, to decidedly demonstrate that the company is on the decline, and the way out, and each time, the company has struck back and returned stronger than before.

This has never been more marked than now, with the 3DS and Wii U, Nintendo’s worst performing handheld and console in history respectively, and with four consecutive years of them posting losses. But now, as one should have expected all along, Nintendo seems to be striking back. We already knew that, in the wake of Mario Kart 8, Wii U sales are rising; we knew that, in the wake of that game and a very successful E3, more people are inclined to get the Wii U than ever before; we already knew that they had posted a profit last quarter, and expected to post a profit for the entire year.

What we didn’t know was just how crazy it would all be. It appears that the triple whammy of Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire (which has already sold 7.7 million units worldwide), Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and- and this is the most important one- Nintendo’s NFC figurines, Amiibos have given Nintendo incredible momentum going into this holiday season, and their profits are expected to triple, according to Bloomberg. 

“Nintendo has picked up good momentum heading into the Christmas season,” said Tomoaki Kawasaki, a Tokyo-based analyst with Iwai Cosmo Securities Co., who raised his rating to neutral plus last month. “This time they have a hit lineup. Amiibo represents a new revenue source, and we are watching it very closely.”

Bloomberg itself estimated that sales of Amiibo are expected to raise $1 billion in revenue in the US alone- such crazy sales would single handedly make up for the losses Nintendo has suffered over the last four years, and would provide them with the necessary financial footing to go into the next generation on a strong foot.

Wii U lifetime sales currently stand at 7.2 million units, although Nintendo expects the number to be at 9.5 million units by the end of this financial year; the 3DS currently stands at 45 million units, though Nintendo is aiming for that to be over 50 million units. Recent hits for both platforms, in addition to the ones stated- Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, Bayonetta 2, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Hyrule Warriors, and Mario Kart 8, of course- should all help maintain momentum.