The Pokémon Company has released sales figures for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and compared to the game’s tiny budget, it’s a huge success.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A launched last week and we were pleasantly surprised to find it’s a fairly major step forward for 3D Pokémon games.
The sequel to Pokémon Legends: Arceus is set in the Paris-like Lumiose City, from Pokémon X and Y, and introduces real-time battle mechanics for the first time.
It’s set to be the big Christmas game for the Nintendo Switch 2, and based on its first week of sales, it’s it’s already another massive hit for The Pokémon Company.
Following the game’s launch on Thursday, October 16, The Pokémon Company announced Pokémon Legends: Z-A has sold 5.8 million copies worldwide in its first week.
The game was released on both the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, and despite the new console only being around four months old, ‘approximately half of these sales’ were on the Switch 2, which includes digital downloads.
That’s a pretty crazy statistic for such a new console, and should please Nintendo, who want people to migrate over to the new hardware. When you compare it with the slow transition from the PlayStation 4 to the PlayStation 5 it’s particularly impressive.
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In comparison to other Pokémon games over recent years, the launch sales for Pokémon Legends: Z-A are lower. Pokémon Legends: Arceus hit 6.5 million copies in its first week, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet sold 10 million within three days. The latter, however, is bound to be higher because they’re mainline games.
Despite the slightly lower sales, The Pokémon Company will still be rejoicing at the profits. According to a recent leak, Pokémon Legends: Z-A had a budget of just $13 million (£9.7 million), which is orders of magnitude lower than your average first party title. In comparison, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation 5 had a reported budget of $315 million (£236 million).
Through some napkin math, if you split the 5.8 million copies sold directly in half between Switch and Switch 2 sales, priced at $60 and $70, respectively, in the US and work out the overall income, that roughly equates to $377 million (£282 million) in revenue.
While the actual budget for Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be higher than $13 million once marketing and other costs are factored in, that suggests a profit in excess of $300 million in just a week.
That’s a profit rate of 93%, which is enough to make Microsoft execs weep, given recent leaks about the impossible goals being set for Xbox.
However, these sales do make you wonder why the budget for Pokémon games in general are so low – when they could easily double, or triple, the budget and still earn a huge profit. It certainly means there’s even less excuse than ever for not having voice-acting.
These sales will likely only soar in the coming months, over the Christmas season, especially with the Pokémon Legends: Z-A Switch 2 bundle doing the rounds too. If you’re looking for a cheap deal, you can find some small discounts here.
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