Pokemon Sun and Moon have best launch ever for the franchise

The games also spurred sales of the 3DS.

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Nintendo already let us know that Pokemon Sun and Moon had done very well for the company, but the November report from the NPD Group has confirmed it, and added a bit more detail.

“Pokemon Sun and Pokemon: Moon had the strongest launch in the history of the franchise, selling 8 percent more units than the previous best-selling combo of Pokemon: White and Pokemon: Black despite having 19 fewer days in market during the month,” NPD analyst Sam Naji said in the release announcing the November numbers. The two games finished third and fourth in the software list respectively, and that was without including any digital sales numbers.

The popularity of the games also gave its handheld platform a boost. "Nintendo 3DS experienced its highest monthly physical software spending in the history of the platform,” Naji said. “They were 1 percent higher than the previous high in December 2014.”

Here are the top 10 November software sellers (for the four weeks of Ocotober 30 to November 26). An asterisk means no digital sales were included for the ranking:

  1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
  2. Battlefield 1
  3. Pokémon Sun*
  4. Pokémon Moon*
  5. Titanfall 2
  6. NBA 2K17
  7. Madden NFL 17
  8. Watch Dogs 2
  9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim*
  10. FIFA 17

Overall numbers for the month were down in four categories, compared to the same period last year. Hardware was down 35% ($723.8 million in 2016 vs. $1.12 billion in 2015); Console software fell 18% ($955.2 million in 2016 vs. $1.17 billion last year); PC software was off 28% ($27.5 million in 2016 vs. $38.1 million in 2015); and accessory sales dropped 6% ($259.8 million this year vs. $277.1 million last year).

“The year-on-year software revenue decline was driven by the strong comparison to last November’s top 3 titles,” Naji said. “Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Fallout 4, and Star Wars: Battlefront, which were all full-priced console new releases. This month’s top three games were Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Battlefield 1, and Pokémon: Sun. Battlefield 1 launched in October, and Pokemon: Sun launched at a lower [price] than last November’s console games. As all titles outside of the top three grew a combined 12 percent vs. year ago, it is the top three title grouping that drove the year-on-year decline.”

Contributing Editor
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