First-week sales hit six million for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl

by Quinton O'Connor on 08 December, 2021

Japanese website Gamer has revealed that first-week sales for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl are in the ballpark of six million copies.

You're going to be seeing this quoted around the internet today, and not for no reason, but prominent Pokenthusiast (that's my term, I've coined it, you can't have it) Joe "Serebii" Merrick has kindly put things into perspective:

Sword & Shield did around the same
Let's Go did around half of that at 3 million
Sun & Moon did 7.2 million in the first two weeks
X & Y did 4 million in 2 days
ORAS did 3 million

Sword & Shield are on track to being the 2nd best selling Pokémon games of all time

Now, it's always worth noting the number of Switches on the market at each given interval. Let's Go launched in late 2018; Nintendo's hybrid hardware has shipped tens of millions of units since. But every fandom, even Pokemon, has its natural limits; it's doubtful that Let's Go would be up here at the six-million mark even today.

What does it all mean? For starters, those who felt like BDSP's controversial art style would hamper its sales potential were either incorrect or Sinnoh's remakes could have had the biggest debut in series history — highly unlikely, but hey, I guess we'll never know.

It also indicates the kind of thing anyone could have figured in advance: Pokemon is as alive today as it was 25 years ago.

Some further Sinnoh-side reading: