Pokémon Scarlet & Violet have Nintendo’s ‘biggest launch ever’ with 10m sales

Sales of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are off to a record start, according to publisher Nintendo.

The platform holder announced on Wednesday that sales of the Nintendo Switch titles surpassed 10 million combined units in the first 72 hours following their worldwide release on November 18, 2022.

“This is the highest global sales level for any software on any Nintendo platform within the first three days,” Nintendo said.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet also sold more boxed copies in the UK during launch than any other game this year.

That’s according to GfK sales figures (reported by GamesIndustry.biz), which suggest that the game sold more physical copies in its opening weekend than any other game has in the UK during 2022.

The previous highest was FIFA 23, but Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s sales were reportedly up 4% compared to EA‘s football game, despite being on a single format.

The only Pokémon game that sold more physical copies in its first weekend in the UK was Pokémon Sun and Moon in 2016, which was released four months after the launch of the hugely popular mobile game Pokémon Go.

The latest mainline games in the Pokémon series are the first fully open-world titles in the franchise’s history.

Further reading

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet walkthrough, tips, and Pokemon locations

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet tips, evolution methods and all class answers

In VGC’s Pokémon Scarlet and Violet review, we said the games were the most feature-rich Pokémon titles in years but suffered from technical issues.

“The huge expansion and changes to the single player campaign are great, the size of the world and the joy of exploration are the best in the series, and the new Pokemon and battle mechanics introduced all sing,” we wrote. “However, it’s just impossible to shake the thought of how much better the game would feel if it was on more powerful hardware, or simply ran acceptably on Switch.”