Nintendo quarterly sales update (To June 30th 2021) Switch 89.04 m

[VideoGameAccountant]

Wyrdness said:

VideoGameAccountant said:

I can totally buy that, but I think it's more reason that the Pokemon Company has outlived it's usefulness. Not to go on an entire tangent about Pokemon, but the Pokemon Company is more concerned about milking the series at the cost of the brand. I think it's something Nintendo needs to try and get a handle on. With more Nintendo series beating out Pokemon, it's clear that the brand is in a bit of a decline.

This is objectively incorrect people can have what ever opinion on Pokemon which is fair enough but to say it's on a decline is factually wrong SW/SH not only have increased sales of the mainline games from recent years but they're going to finish as the second best selling titles in the series at least that marks a big increase not a decline it'll be their highest finish since the GB monopoly. The mode of logic is even questionable because all the games that have outsold SW/SH are not only the best sellers in the series and the gen by far at this point but it would be like saying Mario is declining as a brand because SMO is outsold by five games despite the fact that it has outsold the prior best selling 3D Mario game by double even though that game is a 10m plus seller that's full on flawed.

There's another post I want to address but I wanted to tackle this because I think people look too much at total sales and not the change of. First off, all Switch titles are doing better than their Wii/3DS/Wii U counterparts. So yeah, I would expect the Switch Pokemon to do well. Metroid Dread will do well for the same reason. There are more Switch users and Switch users tend to buy a lot of software. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic was kind to Nintendo as people flocked to Switch for entertainment. So yeah, I'd expect Pokemon sale's be be high relative to games on the other systems.

However, when you compare the change in titles, it's not as favorable for Pokemon. As of 12/31/19, the game sold 16.06 million. So it total, it sold 5.79 million (between then as 6/30/21). While that seems good, compare it to the growth of other titles. Breath of the Wild sold an additional 6.86 million. Smash Ultimate sold 7.09 million. Mario Kart sold 14.12 million. Ring Fit sold 9.09 million more. Mario Party sold 6.60 million more. Even Mario Odyssey isn't that far behind Pokemon as it sold 4.81 million more. All of these games came out before Pokemon, many of them at least 2 years before. Pokemon should have sold more during this time as it was a newer title and Nintendo Switch software sold incredibly well during that time. But Pokemon grew by less than other major Nintendo series. Keep in mind that Pokemon Sword and Shield includes both versions, and sales of that title can include someone buying the game twice. The fact it's sales have tapered off more than other Nintendo series is telling. All of this is before even considering Animal Crossing's meteoric rise which dwarfed Pokemon despite coming out around the same time. 

The fact is Pokemon isn't keeping pace with other series. Part of that is because of the quality of some of these titles, but the fact Pokemon didn't see similar growth for being as big of a series as it is tells me the series isn't as hot as people want to say it is. In regards to the Diamond and Pearl remakes, the remakes always do worse than the main titles. This was true for the DS and 3DS games. These title will do worse than Sword and Shield. If people are choosing other games over Pokemon, then I don't expect the next two titles to do incredibly well without a substantial increase in quality.