Two weeks ago was Pokémon’s 20th anniversary and to commemorate the occasion Nintendo re-released Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow to the eShop. Since then the three games have went on to make Nintendo some serious money. GameSpot reports.
Sales of the three games combine out sold the previous record holder Super Smash Bros. for first-week sales. You remember Smash Bros. right, that little game. A Nintendo rep who spoke to GameSpot said this:
With classic graphics and timeless gameplay, these versions of the original Pokémon adventure are proving to be a popular way for fans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series.
Since Nintendo didn’t release the actual figures we don’t really know how much the three games made, but we can speculate. According to another article from GameSpot, when Super Smash Bros. released for the 3DS, within the first two days of its release SSB sold 705,000 copies with 135,000 being digital eShop sales. So 135,000 copies at $39.99 per unit brings us to a total of $5,398,650, which Smash Bros. then exceeded. The original Pokémon games out sold that, with a ten dollar price point no less.
Now of course that number isn’t official since it excludes the million units sold opening weekend in Japan, but it gives you an idea of how much these games made for Nintendo and how popular they still are after twenty years.
Nintendo is having a good year so far, with it’s other big release Fire Emblem Fates also setting records; and other big titles like Pokkén, slated to come out next week, and Pokémon Sun and Moon coming this holiday season likely to be top sellers.