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Mnementh said:
I am referring to this two charts: https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending=Yearly https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending=Monthly But I realize that March data may still be incomplete and made mostly of Japan, which puts Switch at an advantage. OK, so let me analyze the data in more detail. The Monthly global chart I posted in the second link puts Switch ahead of PS5 in January by about 5K units (765,795 vs. 760,325), while PS5 won February by about 30K (840,179 for PS5 vs. 811,435 for Switch 2). If we look at only Japan, which seems to have complete data for March: https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Japan&ending=Monthly Switch 2 nearly doubled it's sales over February, with 448,494 (vs. 283,640 in February). PS5 also increased sales from 48,202 to 76,989. But that still means that in absolute numbers grewq by 165K units and PS5 by 29K. That means that even with Japan alone Switch 2 wins 130K units even if we assume the other regions behave the same as in February. That is more than enough to overtake the lead of PS5 of about 25K units so far for the year. But you assume the other regions will not be impacted by the games. This makes no sense at all. The original Tomodachi Life sold more in Europe than in Japan and even though the US was weaker, it still sold considerably there: https://www.vgchartz.com/game/81026/tomodachi-life/sales The March data obviously doesn't even include the Tomodachi effect, this will only come via April, so we will see a boost in April as well. Pokopia is a bit more complicated, as it is a new series. But, it is made of gameplay elements taken from Dragon Quest Builders/Minecraft and Animal Crossing. This all is combined with the Pokemon IP. We know that the Pokemon IP has worldwide appeal, this alone draws in people. We also know that the gameplay loops borrowed from the aforementioned games are incredibly popular. There is a reason why so many game tubers used the tagline "I was wrong about Pokopia" in their video titles: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i+was+wrong+about+pokopia They all wanted to discard Pokopia, but couldn't after playing. Pokopia sold 2.2 million in it's first four days ( https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/03/pokemon-pokopia-sales-surpass-2-2-million-units-globally-in-first-four-days ), Japan accounted for a fourth (550K) of these numbers: https://www.vgchartz.com/article/467268/pokemon-pokopia-tops-the-japanese-charts-switch-2-sells-128k/ So no, Pokopia and Tomodachi both are not just japanese phenomenons. More importantly: they both aren't primarily targeted at enthusiastic gamers (which is the reason why you and these game youtubers disregarded it at first), but a more general audience. Which means these games will be far less front loaded than the games for gamers, as we generally tend to buy games on release (I did with Pokopia, which I was excited for as I loved Dragon Quest Builders, even though I haven't touched Pokemon in a while). I assume both games will stick to the TOP 10 throughout the year, only temporarily shifted out on multiple popular new releases and keep selling themself and new Switch 2. |
All good and interesting points. I still think the relationship between sales of these games and NS2 sales may be reversed. This is to say, that while there is clearly evidence for a modest boost following Pokopia in particular, I believe that sales of these games will be more closely tied to sales of hardware and not the other way around. They can become evergreens in other words.
