Pokemon: Could D/P bring it back!

[Joelcool7]

Recently their has been alot of talk about Pokemon Diamond and Pearl being able to bring Pokemon back. Now I have gone to Wikipedia (The only site with a detailed sales list) of Pokemon's past games including the games that started it all. Now lets look at just where Diamond and Pearl stand currently on the list of Pokemon games (Real one, meaning only handheld).

Sets Of Success

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl have sold over 5-million units combined in Japan since launch. Now that is within a very short period of time considering the games were only released last fall. In a little over six months Nintendo has been able to ship 5-million copies of the game to the Japanese consumers. Pokemon Pearl and Diamond remain rare finds in Japan as Nintendo begins to stock pile copies of Diamond/Pearl for the North America market. Pre-orders are already out of controll accross North America with many people buying both versions. Sales are going to be huge come April 22nd when the titles reach North American shores.

Pokemon - Red/Green/Blue
Pokemon Red/Green/Blue were the very first Pokemon titles to be released and the starting point of Pokemon as a leading RPG franchise. For North American's Red and Blue were the only to games released but the Japanese market got Red, Blue and Green.  All three Pokemon titles combined are believed to have numbered over 20-million in sales. In North America alone 9.85 million copies of the games were sold. This is when the series was its strongest.


Pokemon Silver/Gold
Pokemon Gold and Silver were Nintendo's second Pokemon launch. This was Nintendo's second duo and turned out to be a very hot seller. A movie had been released and second one was dedicated to Lugia who starred in Pokemon Silver, the two games were also the first colour Pokemon titles and gamers couldn't help but buy them up. The two titles combined sold 14.51 million copies over 7 million each.


Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire were the first Pokemon titles to be unvieled for the GameBoyAdvance and Nintendo hoped they would reclaim the glory of early days. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire proved the franchise was still alive and kicking and while the games continue to sell their last known sales stats were approx 13-million units. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire came close but failed to stop the decline in sales over the years since the franchises birth on the good old GameBoy.

So can Pokemon Diamond and Pearl bring Pokemon back to the fame and fortune it had during Red and Blue, most likely not but worth a try. Pokemon Red/Blue/Green sold over ten million units in Japan alone while Pearl and Diamond have only garnered sales of over 5-million. Of course it hasn't even been a year since P/D launched in Japan their is still plenty of time for it to catch up. The question is will Pokemon Diamond/Pearl manage to bring Pokemon back to where it was in the mid 90's is it even possable?


Now I chose not to include Pokemon Leaf Green / Fire Red because they were only remakes of the classics and the fanbase obviously wasn't to accepting since they only sold roughly 6-million copies globally (To date) I also descided to leave Yellow , Chrystal and Emerald out because they were seperate games and can't really be compared alongside Pearl and Diamond.