wow, great graphs! id been waiting for someone to do this so much that i almost considered making them myself. so thanks for saving me from that :)

Hehe, no problem

Like I said, I very much doubt many hardcore fans boycotted it. I bet 99% of them bought it but then just complained endlessly online (and the other 1% will eventually buy it). If you are a hardcore Pokemon fan are you really not going to buy the first core Pokemon game for a console? Unlikely.

Also there are plenty of people who don't buy Nintendo portables but have a Switch, so don't normally buy Pokemon games because they don't own those systems, who got this game (me for instance - this is my first pokemon game since I got Red in 1999). So yeah the expanded sales opportunities the Switch fan base affords can easily make up for any tiny percentage of hardcore fans who did actually boycott the game.

Also like I said I think we see the negative reaction in that it didn't sell even more than it has! We see Animal Crossing, a much smaller franchise, beating Pokemon's initial launch. And while in the 6 week post-launch numbers Pokemon did over 2.6 million more, again that was the holidays for Pokemon and Pokemon is known as a more launch heavy seller, and it did indeed drop off drastically after the holidays while Animal Crossing seems likely to sell far more than Pokemon during their respective second quarter of sales. That should make us realize just how much bigger Pokemon Sword/Shield could have been if it had gotten the good word of mouth that games like Botw, Odyssey, Smash, AC have all had. If Pokemon had been a critically acclaimed game it would probably be a couple million higher right now. While I think Pokemon not being critically acclaimed the way many Switch games have been is hurting it more than any hardcore-fan-only controversy, I'm sure the negative news of the controversy did play a bit into the wider so-so acclaim for the general market reaction to the game.

Great graphs! It's truly a testament to Nintendo's software strength that its middleweight titles hover between 3m to 12m.

Amazing job

Is it bad that I really expected more commitment from the fanbase? People pointing out serious problems and corner cuts and then buying it afterwards feels disheartening.

I love the Sword and Shield sales, because it means that the whiny, entitled gamers who complained were off base and that MOST people loved the games or at least didn't care about 'dexit'. Again, another example of the vocal minority making an issue sound like more than it actually is. 

I mean "commitment" doesn't just mean boycotting stuff haha. Commitment to a series would generally more likely mean buying a game in that series even when it's not perfect, which is what we've seen, so if you expected commitment from the fanbase I think that is exactly what we've seen.

And yeah as Runa says, the Dexit people were a very loud minority. Zero casual pokemon fans care about the "controversy" at all, and probably the vast majority of hardcore fans don't care about it either, and probably the vast majority of hardcore fans who did indeed care about it and scream and whine on the internet about dexit bought the game anyway because they are indeed committed to the franchise. And aren't some updates or DLC to the game minimizing the "controversy" anyways?

I also wouldn't call the things people pointed out "serious problems". Again, only a very vocal tiny minority see any serious problems with the game. Pokemon games are known for giving you pretty much the same thing but with a new set of creatures. Since the original games came out it hasn't exactly been a ground breaking series, just a very popular one.

And, what were the main parts about the "controversy" anyways? People felt the graphics and animations weren't up to par for what can be done on Switch and all the pokemon ever made weren't available to port into the game from the national dex or whatever? Well, do you really play pokemon for advanced graphics? I doubt it. Graphics seemed perfectly fine to me. I don't think anyways expects realistic detailed graphics so that always seemed like angry internet whiners looking for something to dislike when the game has farrrrr better graphics than any previous core pokemon game outside obviously of the one other Pokemon game on the Switch. You know how much the graphics effect my play of the game or how much I notice the graphics...zero amount. Graphics are fine for what you'd expect in a pokemon game, which is to say they aren't advanced and are cartoony and are a huge leap over previous generations obviously thanks to the vastly superior power of the Switch. And I get super hardcore fans being mad about a feature being removed from the game, but Game Freaks' explanation for it makes sense as well - making brand new higher fidelity models and various animations including for every move for over 800 different pokemon seems like it would be an insane task. Not saying what they did was fine, given how much the game will make they should have hired more people to work on it, but still its understandable and since the DLC is adding what like a couple hundred more pokemon to the game most pokemon will be in the game after that. I see hardcore fans being mad about it but at the same time it doesn't surprise me that the (internet outrage) bark was much worse than the (effect on sales) bite.

"Commitment to a series would generally more likely mean buying a game in that series even when it's not perfect, which is what we've seen, so if you expected commitment from the fanbase I think that is exactly what we've seen."

That's the opposite of commitment. You don't complain and loudly point out about what you see as a bad product and yet buy it anyway, and then call that commitment. After all of the criticism (valid criticism, mind you) the fact that the pokemon fanbase still supported such terrible practices in such a way is disheartening, because due to this nothing is going to change. In fact, it's just going to be worse and worse. The Pokemon Co. and GameFreak will try to churn out a game each year, take away more and more features of the game and sell them later at a premium. Now with console prices to boot. This was the chance of changing the course GF had been following since X/Y (and some may argue Black/White), and now noone will take any criticism seriously, because it will fall on hollow ears that know it's going to make millions no matter what they sell.

I love how we call like Link's Awakening an average/good score when it's one of the best selling Zelda games already in less than a year and literally any other companies would die to have that number even for a game that performs really well.