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Nintendo has just released its latest quarterly financial report, revealing that the latest games in the Pokémon mainline series, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, have risen to the position of second best-selling games in the entire series.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, which were released in November 2022, have now sold 26.79 million units, surpassing the previous generation pair of games, which are currently sitting on 26.72 million units sold. The best-selling games in the series remain Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue for the original Game Boy, which have combined sales of over 31 million units.
As noted by Serebii webmaster Joe Merrick, Scarlet and Violet overtaking Sword and Shield is also the first time the second generation of games on a single system – in this case the Nintendo Switch – has outsold the first generation released on the same system.
It’s worth noting that this also the first time a second generation on a console has outsold the firstGBRed, Green & Blue: 31.38mGold & Silver: 23.7mDSDiamond & Pearl: 17.67mBlack & White: 15.64m3DSX & Y: 16.78mSun & Moon: 16.33m
— Joe Merrick (@JoeMerrick) May 8, 2025
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were first released on the Nintendo Switch in late 2022, where they received equal parts praise and criticism from media and players alike. Players praised the games for their innovative gameplay improvements, including the addition of a full open world for the first time in the series’ history, but they were heavily criticised for performance issues, bugs at launch, and poor visual quality.
The games subsequently received a number of post-launch patches, which reduced the number of bugs experienced by most players, but the poor performance and visual quality remained the same, even after the release of paid DLC in 2023. Nintendo has announced that Scarlet and Violet will be getting updates following the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 which will allow the games to take advantage of the more powerful hardware, but no further details have been announced about these updates.
The milestone comes ahead of the release of a brand-new Pokémon game on both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, Pokémon Legends Z-A, which will take players back to the Kalos region first featured in Pokémon X and Y for the Nintendo 3DS. The new game will take place entirely within the region’s major city, Lumiose, and will feature a mix of exploration and real-time battles.
Pokémon Legends Z-A will be released on the Switch and Switch 2 in late 2025.
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