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).

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl

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.

I hadn't realized that it had gone anywhere, it will be huge in NA, UK, EU, PAL, whenever it launches regardless of region. In JPN after the initial sales surge it simply simmers, remaining within the top 30-50 even 2yrs. after its initial release. I don't foresee this trend stopping anytime soon.

Well, there goes the chance for the $30 PSP price drop making any difference. ^,^;;

Very true, I hadn't even considered this vanguardian. Checkmate Nintendo.

 True I never said Pokemon was gone it just isn't where it was when it started. As in the late 90's I mean if you look at my thread you notice that their has been about a 7-million copy drop since Red/Blue/Green to Sapphire and Ruby!

Can Diamond and Pearl sell 20-million bringing the franchise back to its Peak? 

i think the biggest reason for Red/Blue doing so well was because everyone had at least one Gameboy. The DS is selling like mad, but I think it will take quite a bit of time to hit Gameboy levels. Not only was Pokemon way more popular back then, but the Gameboy itself was far cheaper than the DS. My prediction: 15-17 million. So it'll do better than Ruby, but no Pokemon will ever beat the originals.

Does everyone realize there are sales numbers ON THIS SITE?

If you look at them, you'll see that the main games have declined from 31, to 23 to 15 million shipments. Rather large 8 million unit declines, but still among the most popular games of all time.

You'll also see that Diamond and Pearl is tracking to be the one that breaks the trend. It should pass Ruby and Sapphire by about a million units in Japan, and has a legitimate chance to break the downward trend in Europe too, given the install base of 12 million compared to 21 LTD for GBA. America is more sketchy, given the install base. But matching the 15 million of Ruby/Sapphire seems possible and likely. Which is just about all you can ask for.

Do you think this is why Sony dropped the price?

On Topic: Everyone wants this because it's the first Poke'mon on DS it will break the trend.

I think Pokemon on the DS has the potential to outsell the GBA versions (D/P is about to outsell R/S in Japan), but I don't think it will ever catch the original.  (For the record, this site put those sales at 31.37M.)  When Pokemon launched in 1996 for the GB, the system already had close to 50M units out there (12M in Japan alone).  When the 'craze' finally made it to the US in late 1998, the system had about 70M (w/ 24M in the US).  As such, Pokemon had a huge audience of potential buyers.  It also didn't hurt that the game was something very original, that it generated a ton of buzz, and was launched around the holidays in the US and Europe (a year later in 1999).

One of the main reasons I think D/P will not sell as well is that the current DS installed base is much lower (at about 40M worldwide right now) and the DS is owned by a very different group of users.  Nintendo really has opened up the system to people who would never think of picking up a Pokemon game.  And the new game isn't that different from all the previous versions.  I'm sure D/P will drive system sales and plenty of users will pick up a copy, but no where near 31M.

Probably won't reach the originals, but I think the new features and Wi-Fi play should boost it above all the others.