It’s been a big week or so for the Pokémon franchise. First, Pokemon Legends Z-A launched on the Switch and Switch 2, and then, a week later, it was revealed that the game had sold a combined 5.8 million units in those first seven days. Not bad, huh? But wait, the good news hasn’t stopped rolling. For today, Mat Piscatella, of Circana fame, revealed that in the United States, the game had the big “physical unit and dollar sales” launch in the country since Tears of the Kingdom! And no, that’s NOT just for Nintendo, this is for ALL video game sales in the US between May 2023 and now.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A had a massive US launch at retail.Launch week physical unit and dollar sales of Pokémon Legends: Z-A were the biggest for a new physical video game launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom back in May of 2023.Source: Circana Retail Tracking Service
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2025-10-27T15:03:26.958Z
The reason that’s significant is manyfold, not the least of which is that a certain rival publisher tried to claim that exclusivity was “antiquated” in the gaming space. Yet, here’s Nintendo proving that it can move serious units. Just as important, this WASN’T the biggest Poke-launch ever. In terms of raw numbers, Pokemon Legends Z-A did about 60% of what Gen 9 did.
Even still, the game moving such numbers and selling incredibly well on both the Switch and Switch 2 highlights the power of this franchise and the quality that Nintendo likes to release on its systems. Tears of the Kingdom also matched that level of quality, and gamers are excited for what the next “true mainline entries” for both series will be.
Source: Blue Sky
