The Pokemon Company has released some new figures for the Pokemon franchise, showing just how popular and enduring the series’ legacy truly is.
According to a new set of numbers on the company’s official website, Pokemon is nearing 500 million software units shipped worldwide, with the latest figure standing at a whopping 480 million.
It’s worth noting that around 24 million of those, at last count, can be attributed to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, so the series is still going strong sales-wise despite the ambivalent reaction to those games’ technical issues.
In fact, a quick glance at Nintendo’s best-selling titles list shows that Pokemon Sword and Shield have sold around 26 million units, so between them, the mainline Pokemon games on the Switch alone make up for more than 10% of Pokemon‘s total software sales.
The Pokemon Company points out that Pokemon has been translated into nine languages around the world, too, so it’s a truly global franchise (as if you needed reminding).
On the trading card side, the company pulls out some more staggering statistics. Almost 65 billion Pokemon cards have been manufactured since the game was launched, and the card game is available in 15 different languages across 93 countries.
Pokemon‘s animated TV offerings, meanwhile, have been made available in 192 countries and regions around the world. It’s a pretty sobering reminder that it’s Pokemon‘s world, and we’re all just living in it.
Of course, it’s not like the Pokemon franchise is done conquering the world, so these numbers are likely to get even more impressive over time.
While a mainline Pokemon game hasn’t been announced for this year, Pokemon Legends: Z-A is lined up for a release on Switch in early 2025, and a new Pokemon Trading Card Game mobile app is scheduled to arrive this year.
Watch this space for more info on all things Pokemon.
