I think people here are seriously undervaluing these sales. 2 Million is incredible. There is no other franchise in Japan that will launch near those numbers. Not even Dragon Quest. Animal Crossing wont go near it either because it's a series that amounts a large debut. Then we consider just how long Pokemon has been doing this. It will be 25 years next year. That's 25 years of being one of/if not the biggest franchise in Japan. It's debuts are always unmatched and through Japan's birthrate and gaming decline, it always manages to impress. this speaks volumes about the franchise and its longevity in the gaming market. If we look at 2014, a game like Yo-kai Watch launched at 1.3m units. Whereas ORAS launched roughly with the same figures. It's 2019. Pokemon launched with 2m, while Yokai Watch launched with only 150k Units. So the next time people discredit or try to find some negative angle against Pokemon, remember that there is no other franchise that will replicate this success. 

Dragon quest and monster hunter would launch around those numbers 

Yea you're right. DQ and MH are as much of religions in Japan as Pokemon is. It's incredible how these three franchises have dominated Japan for quite some time. Mainline DQ games release on weekends to avoid affecting work and school. I think the closest to them are Animal Crossing, Splatoon, and Mario, all Nintendo franchises. And the latter three have incredible sales legs in Japan.

I love the arguments:

“Not as impressive as game X that sold half because the Switch install base is higher now.”

“Not as impressive as Game Y, which sold slightly more. And while Game Y is on a larger install base, that is not relevant.”

This confirmation bias is killing me! 😂

The sales are what they are. In most cases, the initial sales are not the greatest indicator as to what the final sales will be and there’s multiple factors that go into that. Topping the sales of Switch is an impressive number, but it’s not as impressive as past Pokemon games: yes, they did have a higher install base, that is part of their advantage. Writing off that advantage and trying to create some sort of handicap to artificially spin the numbers into something more impressive than they are (or less impressive in the case of some arguing in this thread) is a garbage argument.

Week 1 sales aren’t as relevant as total sales. Once we get into late January or February, we’ll have a better idea of how well this game is doing. Week 1 sales are irrelevant if the game sells better in the long run. So rather than arguing about hypothetical handicap adjustments, why not just compare what happened, and then later on compare what things are trending toward?