Pokémon is by far the biggest media franchise of all time, with the popular anime/game/merchandise machine amassing almost $100 Billion in revenue since its inception back in 1996. While a majority of this revenue comes externally of the games themselves, GameFreak’s output still continues to sell like gangbusters – with almost half a billion games having been sold in the 29 years since the OG Pokémon Red/Blue/Green.
Updating the ‘Pokémon in Figures’ section of their site, Nintendo/GameFreak/Creatures (aka. The Pokémon Company) have revealed just how successful their games continue to be. Despite an ever increasing drop in critical reception, Pokémon games continue to push millions of copies each year.
With 9 million more units sold in the past 12 months (despite no new mainline games releasing since 2022), as a gaming franchise Pokémon is closing in on a massive milestone – with nearly 500 million total units sold (489 million to be exact).
While not video game related, what is perhaps even more impressive/surprising is just how well the trading card game is performing. While over 75 billion cards have been printed to date, a staggering 13.6% of all cards were produced in the past year alone.
Though not quite the top video game franchise of all time, Pokémon is certainly up there, currently positioned as the 4th best-selling – only behind Call of Duty (500 million); Tetris (520 million); and Mario (925 million). Of course, rounding out the top 5 is none other than Grand Theft Auto with 450 million units sold.
Despite the ongoing and seemingly ever-increasing success of the Pokemon game franchise, it will be interesting to see whether next year’s GTA VI manages to help push it out of the no.4 spot. We will have to wait and see.
KitGuru says: What do you think of Pokemon games in today’s day and age? How long before it surpasses both Call of Duty and Tetris? Is the Pokémon game series too big to fail? Let us know down below.
