Pokémon Sword and Shield introduces players to the Galar region, which takes inspiration from the United Kingdom. Interestingly, Sword and Shield have taken the UK by storm in terms of sales, just a few days after its November 15 release. According to Eurogamer, Sword was the best-selling boxed game this week, beating out the new Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which came in second place. Shield came in third, and the dual edition boxset containing both games came in seventh, making this a huge success for Nintendo and Game Freak.
Sword is the biggest platform exclusive game of the year so far, even without including sales from the dual pack and the game’s counterpart, Shield. It beat out other platform exclusives, such as Nintendo’s Luigi’s Mansion 3, and PlayStation’s Days Gone and Death Stranding. The only two games to have sold more copies than Sword this year were Call of Duty and FIFA, which are available across multiple platforms.
Sword and Shield together are the second biggest Pokémon game launch in the UK, coming second only to Sun and Moon, the last mainline Pokémon games released on the 3DS. Compared to other Pokémon titles, Sword and Shield had sales up 50% from Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee released last year and up 45% from X and Y, which were released on the 3DS back in 2013. Out of all Nintendo launches in the UK, Sword and Shield come third, behind Wii Fit and Sun and Moon, according to Gamesindustry.biz, who also reported that Sword and Shield have become the fastest-selling Switch games so far. Digital sales haven’t been counted and included in these numbers, but they’re expected to have also contributed greatly to the total number of sales for the games.
Simultaneously, Switch sales have increased recently in the UK, according to Gamesindustry.biz. Retail data shared with the site revealed that Switch hardware sales rose 30% during the release of Sword and Shield. Around 90,000 Switch consoles have been sold in the UK so far this month. Unsurprisingly, the Switch is the best-selling console in the UK this year so far.
Pokémon Sword and Shield are available for the Nintendo Switch now.